@slender, Amusingly enough, while my lady is by no means a fan of trump, she hates! the idea that the first female president is hilary.
while we were in the states I actually asked her if she wanted to go and register for a postal over seas vote which you can do, and she said not on the basis that she really doesn't care for either of the options available and wouldn't want to support either of them.
Then again we can hardly talk in the Uk given that our first female prime minister jumped streight into a war and one of the biggest economic disasters in our history.
@Mirage, Thanks for the explanation of how candidacy works, though i confess I still find it a bit nuts that each party only has so many candidates to vote for and that someone can be one just with a load of cashagain I find it believable though extremely sad you've had the hate mail. I'm no fan of what I've seen of Trump, but as I said, I applaud the fact that someone is actually thinking! about the issues in question rather than just going off the usual hype which I'm afraid was rather the impression I got of American politics while I was over there, indeed most political debates among my in laws tended to turn into everyone agreeing how godly and right the republican party is and how low down and underhanded all democrats are, ---- not just hilary but all! of them (I'm afraid I did hear that "o'bama wasn't even born in the us" thing.
so I appreciate that someone in the usa is actually thinking seriously about the thing in question and has! a real opinion.
It reminds me of an idea my brother once had, that instead of everyone just walking into a voting booth or putting a cross on a paper, each election day anyone who wanted to vote must sit through an hour long presentation from each potential candidate (and bare in mind in Britain for each constituency there could be 7 or 8).
only after sitting through all the presentations would someone be allowed to make their vote.
Thus, the only people who would vote would be people who cared enough to A, take a day sitting through a lot of talk to do it, and B, had actually heard all the opinions streight from the potential members of parliament themselves in their own words, extolling their own virtues and that of their party, not from the media or any other source.
I wonder if that! would work? 
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Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)
