Thoughts on how to improve the current system

[Taem]

Taem, your posted essay deserves some thoughtful responses, and I may be able to find the time later to give some of the categories the detailed response they deserve. However, the first jumps out to me because I have given some time to that topic in the context of Canadian politics.

CONGRESS
A two-party system has its inherent flaws, as we’ve seen in recent and past dead-locks that ensue with the lame-duck session. While not a real “fix” of the system, introducing at least one additional party would alter the mix, and force all involved parties to rethink how they do business and potentially start thinking about what might be best for the people, instead of the institutions padding their wallets. Of the serious options, I’d suggest a Labor Party and/or Socialist Party to really get the Republicans and Democrats focused our freedoms as they should, while the Socialist Party fights for what we all deserve. Getting a 2/3rd majority vote in this new Congress would be nearly impossible, so I’d push for a 51% acceptance rating.

You cannot mandate a party to exist. My country's experience with additional parties suggests that even when they do, they cannot make much change because of the structure of our voting system.

What you can do is change the structure of your voting system so that other parties do have a chance to actually elect representatives. Mind you, just getting the existing parties (who have everything to lose by making this change) to vote to make that happen will be a challenge, to say the least.

But the archaic First Past the Post system used by both the U.S.A. and Canada is the root cause of much of what ails our political system. The incredibly disproportionate way that votes translate into seats in Parliament/Congress means that change does not take place. (i.e. a candidate and/or party with 30% of the popular vote can and often does take 70% of the seats)

There are many versions of proportional representation voting systems. Personally, I like the version wherein the voter rank orders the names on the ballot so that on vote counting the name that got the least first round votes is dropped out of the running and all the second order ballots for that individual are transferred to their second choices. The process repeats until one candidate gets more than 50% of the of the votes cast in that electoral district.

There are other types of voting structure that would also create a structure that would permit effective reforms. The challenge is to make sufficient people aware of how poorly they are served by FPP.

Do you really think the voting system itself is the root cause? I postulate that making such changes would only encourage widespread corruption of the voting system itself. People want to get ahead, and when money (lots of money) is at stake, you can all by guarantee corruption.

What I'm suggesting is not a direct change to the voting system, but a change to the parties themselves, at least one additional party, forcing each side to have to negotiate for their needs. I think the increased bartering would not actually make the system worse as some fear, but instead force each side to compromise if they wanted anything done without the opposing party supplanting their position through compromise. Then the will of the people should come to light. Short of completely revamping the entire system as it now stands, this is the only logical way I can see for changing the current system for the better.