I fled Amerika 15 years ago because of all of the JUNK you mention above. I sat out all elections until the last one, where I REFUSED to send in an absentee (expat) paper presidential campaign vote, because I figured that if it is manipulated then casting the vote is actually COUNTERPRODUCTIVE. So I decided instead to use my activism (mainly in the form of sharing news about blockchain technology) as my "vote". While I won't disclose here who I WOULD have formally voted for, I will say that you AT LEAST have to give the current administration in America credit for ACTIVELY tackling the issues you mention above. We can't say the same for the EU. My stance at this point is that I will only FORMALLY vote in the next presidential election if they implement proper blockchain-based voting (as they have started to do in various state primary elections this year), If that doesn't happen then I think the ONLY choice we have at this point is (like you pointed out) self-development (and I wold add) activism (such as raising public awareness about the improtant issues via the internet)...