The United States of America, which seeks to export democracy to the world, has had a few noticeable problems making it work properly at home.

For the New York Times, a big part of the problem in electing a president is the Electoral College. It wants the college abolished.

Exhibit One for the prosecution: The 2000 election, in which Dubya beat Al Gore in Electoral College votes yet captured 500,000 fewer votes in doing so.

In its editorial, the Times wrote: "Many people realized then for the first time that we have a system in which the president is chosen not by the voters themselves, but by 538 electors."

Why is that a problem? Because it "thwarts the will of the majority, distorts presidential campaigning and has the potential to produce a true constitutional crisis. There should be a bipartisan movement for direct election of the president."

I'm glad the Times raised the issue. Actually, they have a special Web section called Making Votes Count, which bills itself as "an archive of editorials on the flaws in the mechanics of  our democracy." It's even available for free, even though some articles date back to February (normally you only have seven days of free access to the Times' online archive).

Given the low voter participation rates in the U.S. (question: unavoidable or not, generally speaking, in mature democracies?), I say kudos to the Times.

However, voter participation is dropping in this country too. There are some items of business Mr. Chretien sloughed off with his "don't worry, be happy" routine, but that can't work forever.

Paul Martin has talked a good game about reducing the democratic deficit, but as we've seen with the Supreme Court appointments "review," he wants to reduce it without giving up any power.

So, any Canadian news organization want to tackle a major project on renovating our democracy, if for no other reason than to get the conversation started?