Everybody knows that the american civic religion places a lot of emphasis on our "democracy" as it exists, so we should set up something that will let people in the politics fandom get all of the excitement out of their system without actually getting in the way of important governing decisions.
The actual elections will be on entirely separate dates with minimal fanfare. The show elections will have the non-stop campaigning and press events everyone's used to, but nobody elected will have any political power. On MSM talkshows and the like, they'll only be allowed to talk about things happening on the fake side of things. Mentioning real politics will carry a penalty of having to sort rocks in a quarry (or similar task in regions lacking sufficient rocks) for 1 hour per time mentioned.
In terms of subjects, they can argue over whether we're abolishing the value form too quickly or too slowly, or if outdoor cats should be legal. They'll constantly go on about national unity and how we're too divided while agreeing about 99% of things.
Very close to now, but with more rock stacking drama.