READER GEITNER SIMMONS has some thoughts on the French elections:

The French got their jollies last fall poking fun at our Electoral College; a woefully antique bit of political architecture, they argued. Now, however, I’d say Le Pen’s second-place finish demonstrates the questionable construction of France’s party system.

The French system permitted such a gross fragmenting of the national vote that the candidate of the Socialist Party, the country’s dominant political organization, couldn’t even make the traditional presidential runoff. Sure, Jospin bears much of the blame (as he, to his credit, admitted up-front after the results starting coming in). But it’s hard to see how one can avoid pointing a finger at the folly of France’s out-of-control multi-party system.

“Yes, but a multi-democratic system is more democratic! It better reflects the spectrum of views,” answer the American left-liberals advocating for proportional representation and “cumulative voting.” (A particularly illustrative example of that mindset is Lani Guinier’s call for proportional representation and the end of winner-take-all elections in the March 13, 2001, edition of The American Prospect).

But it seems a real stretch to claim that a presidential runoff pitting Jacques Chirac vs. Le Pen can be called a matchup truly reflective of French sentiment. I’m unconvinced that Le Pen’s positions on law and order represent the desire of some French “silent majority” for a crackdown on Arabs living in France’s ghettoes.

Yes, a runoff between two guys who — between them — didn’t get 40% of the vote makes claims that the 2000 U.S. Presidential election was “undemocratic” seem, well, trivial.