We need electorally plausible alternatives to the two major parties. In every presidential election since 2000, more than one million Americans voted for a third party candidate despite the knowledge that those third party candidates had effectively a zero percent chance of victory. Millions more simply chose not to vote.
This voting outcome is unsurprising given that 28 percent of Americans hold unfavorable views of both major parties, and 37 percent of Americans wish there were more parties to choose from, according to 2023 surveys by Pew Research Center.
If alternative parties had a truly viable chance for electoral victory, would you vote for one? I know I would.
In my opinion, Proportional Ranked Choice Voting (abbreviated as P-RCV, also called Single Transferable Vote) is the best electoral system to adopt because it provides opportunity for alternative parties while requiring all elected candidates to face the voters as individuals, not just as representatives of a party. This kind of multi-winner ranked choice voting system was supported by political scientist Lee Drutman, author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop, and whose analysis is used as the jumping off point for imagining a true multiparty democracy in Chapters 6.d and 11. (Drutman’s views have since changed. As of September 2023, Drutman favors a fusion or open-list proportional representation voting system.)
This electoral system is also supported by the nonpartisan group FairVote. According to FairVote, P-RCV is in use in several localities across the country, including Cambridge, MA, Arden, DE, Arlington County, VA, Minneapolis, MN, and Albany, CA. Soon, P-RCV will be implemented in Amherst, MA, Portland, ME, and Portland, OR.
There are other voting systems that would also be an improvement over our current system, such as the mixed-member proportional system used by Germany and New Zealand briefly discussed in Chapter 3.a.
Law professor Maxwell L. Stearns advocates for a mixed-member proportional parliamentary system similar to those of Germany and New Zealand in his 2024 book Parliamentary America. To be sure, Stearns’ system would be better than our current system. In fact, many of his arguments regarding the benefits of a multiparty system are similar to those you have read here.
In Stearns’ preferred system, half of the seats in Congress would be determined by elections in single-member districts (the same system we have now). The other half of the seats would be determined by a closed-list proportional method, where voters select their preferred political party and seats are apportioned according to the results. Stearns argues that in such a system, alternative parties would win representation and a multiparty democracy would result. This logic is sound.
However, I prefer P-RCV because I prefer a system in which all members of Congress are directly responsible to voters. I don’t like the prospect of party bosses deciding who will be in office after the election. Further, in Stearns’ system, the President would be elected by the new Congress. I firmly reject any change that takes away my vote for the highest office in the land.
What is clear is that there is no perfect system. Just as there are issues with the parliamentary system advocated for by Stearns, there are issues with the P-RCV system advocated here. Both systems would be an improvement over our current system.
From a political strategy perspective, advocates for democratic reform need to come together on a unified proposal. We need to both get the reform right and not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Stearns makes a persuasive argument for a parliamentary system, and I hope that in this book I have made a persuasive argument for P-RCV. Ultimately, both Stearns and I are in complete agreement that the current two-party system is unsustainable, and that a multiparty democracy is the solution. We merely differ on how to get there.
Within 10 years of adopting a P-RCV system, I believe the two-party system as we know it would end, and that we would have a true multiparty democracy.