There is a growing consensus among Americans that our political system is broken. Our government and political climate resemble more of a two-sided mob war than a republic. Government officials focus more on getting reelected than doing their jobs. Party officials spend more time demonizing the other side than promoting their own interests. Candidates can make their own party seem more legitimate by marking the other party as evil and un-American. Our winner-take-all political climate has caused increased polarisation among voters, and especially in Presidential and Congressional Elections, voters who normally identify as an independent or a third party member tend to vote for Democrats or Republicans instead, for fear of casting a wasted spoiler vote. Gerrymandering has created an additional incentive for the party in charge to rig the next congressional election in their favor. The toxic two-party downward spiral has caused our democracy to become less and less democratic and more and more dysfunctional and polarized. American politics needs to be reformed so the spiral does not become worse.

  The desire for change is ripe. According to the Pew Research Center, less than 20% of Americans trust our government to do what’s right either always or most of the time, a record low in recent history. Pew, Gallup, and Voter Study Group have all provided data to show that nearly half of Americans no longer identify as a member of the two major parties, and around 68% of Americans support having a third party in politics, more than ever before. It is clear that people want change. And the good news is that we can deliver change without even amending the Constitution.

  The best sensible solution to the governmental crisis at hand is to switch to ranked-choice voting in the House, the Senate, and for the Presidency and to get rid of congressional primaries, none of which will require a Constitutional Amendment. Lee Drutman’s 2019 book “Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop - The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America” outlines these reforms in a plan to fix our democracy. In a ranked-choice system, instead of just voting for one single candidate, you rank the candidates on the ballot as your 1st choice, 2nd, 3rd, etc. This way, voters don’t have to worry about wasting their vote or voting for a spoiler candidate. They can cast their ballot for their true first choice candidate, and then list one of the major parties as their safe second or third choice. When counting the votes during an election, parties will be eliminated one by one, starting with the party with the least number of first ballot votes, and their voters will be transferred based on their second choices to other candidates until one candidate gains an absolute majority. This ensures that the winner is a broadly acceptable candidate. We should also expand the House to 700 seats so that Representatives are more in touch with their constituents. A final piece of reform comes by changing the districts in which we elect House members: moving from single-winner districts to multi-member districts, where members of multiple parties can be elected Representatives by reaching a certain voting threshold. These reforms will all help alleviate the winner-take-all climate and the pressure brought about by it, and will also encourage smaller third parties to join the political realm. These reforms will open the door to a multi-party democracy that America badly needs.

  In his book, Drutman designs a piece of potential legislation called the Save American Democracy Act (although he doesn’t write the bill in its full text) in which he includes these reforms as a method to rescue our democracy from the doom loop of two-party partisan fighting. Inspired by Drutman’s optimism and determination, I began to try to turn a vision into reality by drafting the reforms listed in the book into a legislative bill, which I’m planning to send to members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. With the support of fellow change-desiring Americans, we can make real reforms to our democratic system, such as ranked-choice voting, which will allow us to vote without thinking of how everyone else will vote, and ultimately increase the number of functional parties in the United States government. But we can’t do it without your support. By adding your name to our petition, you are joining the movement to deliver much needed change to our democracy.