When Americans turn on CNN, Fox News, or some other prominent media outlet to educate themselves on the political landscape of today, what is he or she likely to hear? "Gridlock, failed bipartisanship, deadlock, etc". These words carry meanings and connotations that represent political gridlock that stems from two opposing political parties. Unfortunately, this is the political landscape of 21st Century in America. This current landscape affects the whole country by enabling misrepresentation and a lack of action in congress. Take for example the the start of the 2014 fiscal year when the gridlock was so bad that the government actually shut down. Many necessary services were jeopardized and put on hold due to the disagreement over the budget in Congress, affecting nearly the whole American population. Proportional Representation system evades the inconsistent results of plurality or majority systems and is better able to produce a representative legislature. 

It is undisputable that in the United States today, the political structure is based on a two party system. American bipartisan politics are bad because, "it has ossified to the point where it can only deliver short-term fixes. It has led to entrenched thinking, complacency, and the deification of conventional wisdom  --  all conditions that have made it harder and harder to challenge a broken status quo" (Huffington 3). In the political sphere when you are asked what you consider yourself, most everyone will either say Republican or Democrat. Why is that? As children we are engrained with ideas mostly from our elders to believe in either Republican or Democratic ideals, and to refute the others ideals at basically all costs. This is why the intense gridlock in American Politics exists today. There is little to no third party representation in any facet of the American Government. As a matter of fact, currently, there are only two US senators who are in office that are not associated with either the Republican or Democratic party (King and Sanders). The remaining 533 members either identify themselves as Democratic or Republican.

American ideology is based on democracy: a government whose power is equally vested within the people. While it is true that the American political structure is still influenced by democratic principles, this lack of diversity in congress should be duly noted. You may ask, how did the political landscape get to such a point? Well, the answer is quite simple actually- the winner take all system. Nearly every election in the US is based on a winner take all principle. In other words, voters for the candidate who receives the most votes win representation, while representation among a losing candidate, no matter how close the vote, is null. This may seem like a logical, fair method at first glance, but when you truly dissected it; it is apparent that the winner take all principle is an unfair way to conduct elections. The system clearly excludes minorities whether that be racial, ethnic or political. I understand that it is impossible to represent the complete minority population, and I would be insane to think that we could create some utopia of perfect minority representation. However, that does not mean I can not challenge the current imprisonment of minority values in the United States of America. The American democratic political theory is based on the principle that everyone, including minorities, should have an equal, proportional say in the government. Unfortunately, this is not the case today and we are seeing a Congress that is not proportional of the American electorate, and only composed of only two parties. It is evident in the cases of gerrymandering in congressional districts throughout the United States.

Gerrymandering is the "process of manipulating boundaries of an electoral constituency so as to favor a party," it is an extremely shady practice that occurs in elections. For example, in 2012 election "Democrats won 51 percent of the popular house vote in Pennsylvania. But they only won 5 out of 18 House seats- fewer than one third" (Ingraham 4). This occurred because when Pennsylvania Republicans redrew congressional districts they created highly irregular districts that they understood to be predominantly favoring right wing politics. This is in no way adhering to the ideas of democracy and a truly jaw dropping truth in American politics. In order to stop gerrymandering you would have to take the power out from humans drawing congressional district lines or "implement proportional representation that would allow the gerrymandering problem to lose much of its punch. For example, if the number of representatives from each political party for each state were to reflect the overall distribution of the votes, then how you draw the districts within the state would no longer be such an important consideration" (Friedman 2). The end of gerrymandering would be a key win for a much purer democracy in the United States and is just one example of the advantages of a proportional representation system. 

In delving into the the problem of misrepresentation, you could say it stems from three major issues: the underrepresentation of minorities, voter choice restriction (only two prominent choices on ballot)/ voter turnout, and the fact that most legislative elections are virtually dominated by a single party. As discussed above, the underrepresentation of minorities is caused by the winner take all system where the majority vote wins all of the representation. There have been extensive studies proving that, for the most part, people tend to elect a member of their racial and ethnic group, for example in 2008, president Obama received 98% of the African American vote (Stuart 7). This is only natural for humans to want since you would want someone representing them who is similar in almost all aspects. However, by looking at the new 114th congress, you would discover that is 92 percent of the representatives are Christian, while 80 percent are white and male (Wormald 10). Those numbers are clearly not representative of the American electorate. That being said, it can be noted that the country is moving to a more diversified, representative congress as the 114th Congress is the most diverse in history. Despite this positive progression, further action is still needed. 

Moreover, there are organizations like Represent.us that are bringing the issue of minority representation to the forefront. Represent.us has had immense support with 599,757 petitioners and have already been featured on NBC, The New York Times, CNN, Bloomberg, TIME, Fox News, USA Today, and The Washington Post (Walls 8). This is the exposer that I am calling for, people especially minority millennials should support or at least check out their site. Represent.us in order to represent minority and the majority calls for the end of political bribery, end secret money, and to change how elections are funded all through one act called the American Anti-Corruption Act. (Walls 8). This act will limit corruption and facilitate the growth of politicians who are truly looking out for the interests of United States citizens, instead of being bought by corporations in favor of support. I think this is a great way to combat the system of representation; however, this act negates to recognize the suppression of a third party, the current gridlock, and the winner or take all system that we live in. 

Secondly, the lack of voter choice is a major problem in the American election cycle. When one goes to the ballot to cast his or her vote he or she is forced to pick one candidate out of the two in which they most closely align- not much of a choice. Michael Lind of the Atlantic Monthly stated, "Because of our peculiar electoral law, the American government is divided between two parties. The American people are not" (5). In the current system in which we live we choose a lesser of two evils, either Democratic or Republican. Additionally, if for some reason you were to cast their vote for a third party candidate, you will only be taking votes away from one of the two relevant candidates who is most closely aligned with the third party candidate, further hurting the voter's cause for that particular election cycle. Therefore, voting for a third party enables one of two relevant parties to gain an edge since the vote was, for practical terms, "wasted" on the third party. By voting for a third party, you are contributing to the success of the major political party that is least aligned with the voter's views. For simplicity consider this hypothetical example. Say one voter really supports the green party because he or she is extremely passionate about environmental issues. He or she casts their vote for the green party. Although her vote may bring attention to the changing values of the American electorate, it took away the ability of the Democratic party candidate to contend with the Republican party candidate. Since the green party is most closely aligned with the democratic party, you would assume if this particular person were not vote for the green party, that he or she would cast their vote for the democratic candidate. However, in the short run, since it is a winner take all system, the voter's vote for the green party only hurt their cause by allowing the republican party (the party with opposing views) to gain a clear advantage. The democratic candidate lost a supporter to the closely aligned third party, therefore giving the advantage to the republican candidate. This limited choice also leads to low voter turnout, and is one of the main reasons the United States sees some of the lowest voter turnout compared to all other developed, democratic countries. However, organizations like FairVote are attempting to improve the voting turnout through reforms and technology.  

FairVote is an organization that advocates for electoral reform in the United States. FairVote like Represent.us is incredibly important to my argument because it is a proven organization that attempts to change the current system. FairVote believes the solution to increase voting turnout is an "easily obtainable universal voter registration that would modernize voter registration in the United States, making government responsible for maintaining accurate and complete voter rolls, shifting our system from its current opt-in structure to an opt-out structure" (West 9). Yes, this would absolutely increase voter turnout but, the system of voting would still be a winner take all. Although all those people voted, more than likely a dominate amount of their ideals will not be represented because of the current system. 

Lastly, it is a fact that most legislative districts are virtually dominated by one political party. Since each district is a winner take all system, most Americans face what is called a "no choice election" for electing local officials and representatives of the house. Incumbents are almost always reelected and have a severe advantage in every aspect, while the average margin of victory for elections for house representatives is a stunning 30 percent. There are a few "swing" legislative districts that are actually competitive, but these are few and far between. This whole concept further decreases voter turnout since the outcome of the vote is, for practical matters, already decided before the vote takes place. For a quick hypothetical example, imagine a young voter in a predominantly older, republican district. He or she is a passionate democrat, but since his or her district is already decided republican before the vote takes place, they are more likely to not even show up to the polls as his/her vote would be "wasted". Since the district is a winner take all system, his or her views, beliefs, and wants will not be expressed in congress as the majority wins all representation.

This is an extremely important issue for the upcoming generation especially to minority groups such as BlackLivesMatter and the National Organization for Women. Although the winner take all system may have been effective in the past due to technological restraints, it is not efficient. Congress is moving further and further away from the political wants and needs of the American electorate while it is stunted by a lack of agreement and bipartisanship. That being said, there is a solution to this ever growing problem: proportional representation (PR). A form of PR is used in 21 of 28 western European countries. The system is proven to provide a more accurate representation of political and racial minority votes, account for the once wasted votes, and increase levels of voter turnout all in the while combating problems associated with two party systems such as gerrymandering and gridlock. 

Additionally, the concept is quite simple and extremely democratic. Instead of single member districts, there are larger multi-member districts. The number of seats each party wins in that district is proportional to the number of votes that party wins. For example, if 50% of the vote is republican in a 20 seat district, then 10 seats will be allocated for the republican party, or 50%. One can see where the name proportional representation stems from since it does just that: represents everyone in a balanced, proportional manner. This system accounts for all of the electorate and allows for the entrance of a third, fourth, or even fifth political party since the barriers of entry are minimal. The emergence of new political parties would lead to a more diverse congress that is representative of the public while providing more ideas and compromise. 

As I stated earlier, voting turnout in the United States is horrible. It is the fourth lowest among the thirty-five most developed countries in the world with a 57.5 percent voting turnout in 2012 according to Pew Research Center. Compared to 75 to 95 percent turnout rates in European PR systems. The numbers never lie, how is 57.5 percent indicative of American beliefs. In school, we are graded constantly on how we perform and we are given a percent to represent how well or how poorly we performed. Is this not direct proof of failing at any level of the imagination? The level of complacency in an obviously failing system is inexcusable. 

However, many oppose PR because of the issues in Italy and Israel. PR is a ground that often can breed misunderstanding and separation by promoting large numbers of small political parties. In a scholarly article it states regarding the negative affects, that "in Israel, for example, extremist religious parties are often crucial to the formation of a government" (Cardino1). This argument is pertinent to a middle eastern country, where radical forms of religion are creating a scary place to live. However, the United States is 70% Christian, and religious parties are not nearly as important to United States citizens as they are to the devote Israelis. Moreover, the scholarly essay writes, "while Italy endured many years of unstable shifting coalition governments. Democratizing countries are often fearful that PR will allow personality-based and ethnic-cleavage parties to proliferate in their undeveloped party systems" (Cardino1). This is definitely a scare of PR and it could occur in America. However, the likelihood of let's say a Christian values, Green, and libertarian party of gaining more than a 5 percent party vote is slim, based on historical elections. That does not mean that those numbers could not rise to closer to ten to twelve, but the idea that these parties can proliferate in this system not likely.  Critics will also argue that PR is too difficult to implement or that our current system works, so "why change?" The truth of the matter is that "Free World" and the land of democracy is lacking the pure form of democracy that we so advocate.

Moreover, it appeals to Americans pathos, "It [PR] would free people to vote their hearts, not their fears, thereby breaking the two-party stranglehold on representation and promoting the new voices and real choices we urgently need" (Richie 6). As humans we describe a gut feeling, as moment in which we know what is right, voting should bring out that gut feeling in order to best represent your ideals. Americans have to be sick of attesting or being forced into voting for someone because people tell you he or she is "frat" or wants to legalize "weed". We should be able to vote in accordance to our principles and a two-party system strangles beliefs from being heard. Moving forward, this is an issue my generation and future generations alike need to seriously address. Although change is often times unwanted due to its ambiguity, PR is one one we, as a country, should seriously consider supporting. PR has a proven track record all over the world. By supporting proportional representation, my generation could challenge The United States of America to become a true democracy; one where everyone's thoughts, opinions, and beliefs are heard.

Ok, hopefully you are thinking this is a nice idea, but is it practical? Yes, we would not need to amend a constitutional amendment to take steps in the right direction for PR, but we would need to support a "repealing of the 1967 federal law mandating one-seat districts"    (Richie 6). For once politicians need to stop thinking about what is best for themselves. Democrats and Republicans can change policy and should support or evaluate this issue not as political party issue but for the betterment of America. Honestly changing to proportional representation probably will not happen in our generation, but I believe it is important to question and create discussion about the electoral system. Minority organizations should focus some of there attention to bringing about a change to the winner take all system.

Although this topic might make you yawn, this an extremely important part of our lives and should be taken extremely seriously by minority organizations. The values which govern Americans are affected by the political system in which we live. In the United States, we possess a two party system which often neglects to represent the minority. The system of PR provides a more accurate representation of political and racial minority votes, account for the once wasted votes, and increase levels of voter turnout all in the while combating problems associated with two party systems such as gerrymandering and gridlock. By the wishes of our founding fathers, America is to be a place where everyone can pursue life liberty and pursuit of happiness, that being said PR should be considered or evaluated in order to proportionally represent the wishes and desires of the minority. 

