In America, one of the privileges that we hold most dear in our republic is the Right to vote: the opportunity to participate in free and fair elections. However, our two-party system with its frustrating peevishness and lack of choices is a sham of democracy!

 While at one time the two-party system could have worked, today in our highly polarized political climate it has outlived its effectiveness and degenerated into a monotonous circumlocution from Republican to Democrat, back again, and so forth. It centralizes and consolidates all power in the hands of only one party and enables a core group of immoderate partisans to easily take hold of one party or the other and totally paralyze the political process. Most people understand that our political system is a bust, but despite all the criticism, nobody seems to be able to produce any proactive solutions to change it.

The most logical thing to do would seem to be to vote for a third party. However, despite the perennial proclamations that the American people are fed up with both Republicans and Democrats and are ready to vote for a third party, they never do! But the point that I want to make is that we must fundamentally change the way we look at elections in America, away from the context of simply replacing one of the two main parties and away from the paradigm of which one party can monopolize power, be they Republican vs. Democrat, or Libertarian vs. Democrat, or Republican vs. Green, etc. Instead, we need to approach this topic in terms of decentralizing political power under a multi-party system. Also, the fact of the matter is that it’s our very voting system itself which stymies third parties from making any gains and perpetuates the two-party system. Electing representatives in single-member districts through simple majorities (or absolute majorities, depending on the State) always naturally trends towards only two parties, with one always winning an easy majority in the legislature. It is this majoritarianism which makes it impossible for small parties with limited support to effectively compete.

In comparing the two-party system of America versus the multi-party systems of, basically, everywhere else in the world, we may be envious of their greater political representation, however, this stark contrast isn’t some accident of chance, but is the result of Proportional Representation. Now, to Americans this is an extremely alien and unknown concept, but it basically means that political parties are allocated seats in the legislature proportional to the percentage of the vote they receive. For instance, if a party or a group of candidates receive 5% of the vote in an election, they would get around 5% of the seats. This type of voting system is naturally conducive to multiple parties being represented in the legislature and usually results in no single party attaining over half of the seats. Instead, one larger party must often times join with a number of smaller parties and form a coalition (a legislative alliance between parties) in order to declare a majority. Adopting Proportional Representation for elections to our State Legislature in Louisiana is the only way to bring an end to two-party dominance, decentralize political power and bring about a proliferation of more parties, at least within our own small corner of the country.

In Louisiana, our elections already are slightly different. In State elections, all candidates for a particular office run in one general election regardless of party in an open primary called the “Nonpartisan Blanket Primary”, – which I feel is an advantage as it takes away the power of nomination from the party leadership and puts it directly in the hands of the voters themselves – then whichever candidate polls an absolute majority of the vote (50% plus 1) is declared the winner. However, if none achieve the votes needed, the two highest-polling candidates must face each other in a separate runoff election. Although I think our system is a much better and democratic system over States with closed primaries, encourages greater diversity even within political parties, and even mostly lessens the effect of vote-splitting, it still produces the same two-party duopoly which plagues all plurality voting systems.

What I propose is that we should adopt a voting system called the “Single-Transferable Vote” or STV for short. In elections held under STV there would be fewer, larger electoral districts where representatives are chosen by voting for the candidate that you want to get elected, but on the ballot you may also mark a second, third, fourth choice, or as many are there are seats to be filled. The votes are tallied and a simple formula is used to set a quota of votes a candidate must receive in order to win, which is always less than the total number of votes cast. For example, say in a 4-member constituency 10,000 votes are cast and the formula to find the quota is the total number of votes divided by one more than the number of representatives to be elected. In this case, 4+1 is 5, therefore, the quota would be 2000. However, candidates sometimes win with more votes than are necessary, and successive winners must rely on what are called “Transfer Votes.” That’s where marking second choices come into play, where a fractional amount of the first winning candidate’s total votes are transferred to other candidates in accordance to the voters’ wishes indicated on the ballots. Additionally, votes shall also be transferred from candidates who’ve been eliminated if they fail to meet the quota. This goes on until all 4 representatives are elected.

So, as you can see, this is a very fair and proportional alternative and maintains local, geographical representation with proportionality. And it’s possible for third party candidates running competitive, effective campaigns and more Independents to get elected resulting in a much more politically diverse, multi-party State Legislature. Personally, I’m fine with us remaining a largely two-party system where Republicans and Democrats get the highest percentages of votes and, therefore, the most seats, but what I’d like to see is two or three viable third parties and several Independents make up about one-third of the Legislature and where Republicans or Democrats would be behooved to form a coalition with this third party/Independent bloc in order to govern. Ambition is a check on ambition, and under these coalitions the parties involved must compromise and form a more codependent relationship with each other where the smaller parties depend on the larger party leading the coalition in order to get their policies into the mainstream despite their lack of numbers. And likewise, the large party, while having the advantage of numbers and may set the legislative agenda, finds that it must make some concessions with its partners in order to maintain its majority.

Additionally, I think that we should have Instant Runoff voting for gubernatorial, local and all other State elections. It’s quite similar to STV, except it’s for single-member districts in which candidates must achieve over 50% of the vote. However, instead of eliminating all but the top two candidates for runoff elections, candidates are eliminated and votes are transferred until one candidate holds an absolute majority of the vote in only one count. This will achieve the same goal as our current system does, but much more democratically and at less expense.

In closing, I encourage our readers to seriously and honestly consider what I’ve just put forward in hoping that it will begin a conversation that we desperately need in America, but is never mentioned in the political mainstream. If we are to ever see any meaningful proactive, political reform we absolutely must start with the voting system and it must always start on the State level. Louisiana is a truly unique place, and I feel that we should strive to become even more unique, and the best place to start would be by reforming our voting system and establishing a multi-party State Legislature. I appreciate the opportunity which I was given to write this article and hope to do many more in the future.