Reference no: EM13160711

United States voting system single member districting is the way our voting system is setup. However single districting voting system in United States is flawed and we need to reform. These flaws are the miss-treatment of third parties being that mostly people are limited to the two main party of democrats/republican, creates legislature that do not fully follow the ideals of the citizens, and members of racial and ethnics minority are not significantly represented in voting polls. However the solution to our “winner takes all system” would be to adopted systems of proportional representation. Proportional representation would restore our American government strengthen our democracy by created more option for voters, fixing our voters rights issues, and removing Gerrymandering.

For American when comes to voting in state and federal primaries election only have two main options in the democrats and the republicans. Americans are fed up with both parties and are craving for other parties to rise up and challenge the two main parties. In addition in a recent survey, “60 per cent of Americans would now like to see other parties emerge to challenge the Democrats and Republicans”. Proportional representation will help break the habit of voters not voting at all because of not liking either option or the custom of picking “the lesser of two evil” of both major parties candidates. In addition between the Democrats and republican candidates “in the winner takes all elections, the parties candidates just need votes from majority or nearly all people to win, as result it difficult for minor party to win. However in the systems of proportional representation it makes sure that there will be equal share representation for every political party, including minor party, which will increase option for the voters and creating more multi-party system. Finally the multi-party system will insure that there a variety of political viewpoints in our electorate for the local, state, and federal level.

When it comes to voting rights among racial and ethnic minority there are not being fairly represented in the legislature. This harped back to recent court cases by the Supreme Court in trying to prevent the supposedly called “racial Gerrymandering”. The result of these cases has made it incredible difficult in forming majority-minority district. The solution to this voting rights is proportional representation, coming from the basic foundational standard of fairness to all, which makes sure that everyone and not just racial minorities voting’s rights are protected. Furthermore the minorities will be able to garner their fair share of seats leading to a unique opportunity to play a huge rule in influence elections in having power to shift among different parties of their choice. Many civil rights leaders are including most notable Jesse Jackson are in support of proportional representation because it would help motivate minority to come together to win power in legislature.

One of main key advantage of proportional representation is significantly decreases or exterminates parties gerrymandering. One of the annoying aspect of single member district system is drawing of district lines in way that gather majority that approve of certain parties or incumbents. On the other hand with proportional representation the drawing of district line has zero effect on representation amongst parties. For instance does not matter which party is majority or minority due to fact of a district being significantly large, 3 or 4 seats in the house, in a multisystem created by proportional representation. Furthermore, with proportional representation we would not need to worry about the drawing of district lines deciding representation or the party that gains control in the legislature.

Proportional representation is currently a hot debatable topic right now, yet the time is now to push it to the forefront of our reform agenda. If we as citizens of the United Sates continue to follow the single member district system then our country is doing a disservice to us in making our votes meaningless. If we truly want have the best form of government then we need to reform from a current voting system to proportional representation systems. Resulting of implementing this certain voting systems will create fair and more democratic elections something that Americans currently do not have.