Policy: Election Reform Proposals

Lars Poulsen - 2025-12-21

American elections do not work well at all, with the possible exception of municipal ones. But due to the way the Federal Constitution, Federal statutes (i.e. ordinary laws), State constitutions and state statutes interact, it seems daunting to try to fix the problems.

What are the Problems?

There are many problems, and they interact in ways that we did not foresee just 30 or 40 years ago.

When the constitution was written around 1780, it was based on the British laws, and tried to address some of the problems that had been seen there. It was also created in a worlds that was very different from ours.

The wealthy landowners and merchants that wrote the constitution did not believe in Democracy, which they viewed as anarchy, subject to being corrupted by demagogues. If ordinary workers with little education could vote, unscrupulous politicians would promise them the world in order to get elected and write laws that served their own interests at the expense of "the people".

At the time, it could take months for news to spread throughout the land, so it was deemed to be of primary importance that the elected representatives first and foremost represented their geographical region. After all, they were mostly all from the same sociological class, they all had somewhat similar university education etc. The notion of political parties that would represent the divergent economical interests of different classes had not yet been invented.

The government structure laid out in the constitution is rooted in these conditions and has not evolved nearly as much as the constitutions of other "Western" countries over the 200+ years since then.

First Past the Post

Almost all elections in the USA follow a pattern where the geographical area is divided into districts of roughly equal population, and within each district, one representative is elected. This principle is followed in national elections, state elections and most municipal elections. In a few cases, elections for City council may elect 5 or 7 council members "at large", i.e. the city is one district, electing all members at the same time or possibly electing half the embers each year with staggered periods, but in such cases, voters can cast a ballot far each open seat, so the largest party is likely to take most or all seats. (If you could only vote for one candidate, you might end up with something more like a proportional representation.)

Even worse: The aggregate outcome depends on who draws the district boundaries. Elections for the House of Representatives in the US Congress are run in districts drawn by the state legislatures. If a state legislature is dominated by a particular party, they can draw the districts in such a way that even if there are roughly equal members of each party, the representatives elected are mostly from that party. And since the dominant party also draws the districts for the state elections, they can do the same for the state legislature. So in a state with a 60-40 percentage split between the parties, the dominant party can have 75% of the seats in the legislature. This is done by drawing districts where most districts have a small majority of the dominant party, while a smaller number of districts are almost completely comprised of voters from the smaller party. Over time the smaller party will dwindle, as its members lose hope of getting influence and instead attach themselves to the larger party in the hope of influencing it.

Another result is that only two parties can realistically compete in such a system. Any votes cast for a third party are effectively lost, so you have to vote for the party that offends you less, rather than the one you actually like.

Too Few Parties

With only two parties, you are likely to end with a deadlocked legislature when important legislation is drafted. It works much better to have 4-6 parties of which none on its own can form a majority.

In reality, the US as about that many parties when you look under the hood, but the election system forces them to form their coalitions before the general election. And as the political discourse has deteriorated, party discipline has tightened, where previously a presidential administration could "buy" votes by "earmarking" spending in a particular legislator's home district. Negotiating between parties in a coalition would be less corrupt.

Skyrocketing Election Costs Lead to Corruption

The average cost of a successful campaign for a seat in the US House of Representatives is about two million dollars, and there is an election every two years. The vast majority of this cost is to buy television ads. In the lead-up to the election, television stations raise their prices for advertising spots (often up to double the normal rate) and almost all the ads are political, bought either by candidates, parties, or special interest groups trying to make sure that whoever gets elected will be indebted to them for their help.

It used to be that there were limits to how much corporations could donate to an election campaign, but since the Supreme Court ruled that giving money to a political campaign is constitutionally protected "free speech", the sky is the limit.

In the 1970s, political activist Ralph Nader wrote that if every voter would give ten dollars to the candidate of their choice, they would outspend all the special interests. That is no longer true. There are around 175 million voters in the US. Just the presidential election held every four years now costs well over two BILLION dollars. In 2024, billionaire Elon Musk pledged 200 million dollars to Donald Trump's campaign alone. Surely, this was a business decision calculated to give him money back in the form of - tax benefits for his businesses - government purchases steered to his business - subsidies for the products produced by his businesses. And we saw the enormous influence he had in helping President Trump dismantle the Federal government administration.

To raise two million dollars in the two years between elections, a member of the house has to raise $4000 each day for 250 days a year - while also doing his job proposing, drafting, reviewing and debating legislation. You do not raise $20,000 every week by writing letters to constituents - you have to ask people with real money: Business agents, industry associations and wealthy people who want to see their taxes cut.

You do not tend to get big gifts like that from people who want to see less pollution or better schools.

The Two-Step Election; First Primary, then General

In almost all elections, candidates are registered by parties, who register one candidate for each party for each position to be elected. In order to select that candidate, each party has an election where they pick their final candidate from out a any number that may have offered their candidacy. In most countries, the political parties are membership associations, and that internal election is a private affair in which the government takes no part. But in the USA, the "primary" election is operated by the government. Usually, they happen on the same day, and the voters register to indicate which party's election they want to vote in.

In California, primary elections for state legislature seats and statewide offices happen in a single combined election open to all candidates, and the two candidates who get the most votes advance to the general election in November. In California, they are often two Democrats competing in the general election.

The two-step election process makes election campaigns more expensive, in part because they take longer.

Are there Solutions?

To the degree we can identify specific causes of the problems, we should be able to propose solutions. But there are obstacles.

The first is that the legislators who have to write the improved election laws were elected under the current system, and obviously have found that the current system works for them, and if we change the system, it is likely that the winners will be somebody else.

The second is that elections to the Federal Congress are managed by the states under rules developed by the state legislatures, who are generally happy to set rules that favor the party in control of the state government.

The third is that some of the parameters are embedded in the Federal Constitution, which is very difficult to make changes to. The amendments enacted in the 240 years since it was written have generally been additions of a few lines, not rewrites of a whole section. So it is best if the rule changes can be written in such a way that they do not require changes to the text of the constitution, but only a flexible interpretation of the words already there.

Allowing More Parties

As mentioned above, the "first past the post" election system where each district elects just one representative means that even with a small majority overall, the biggest party can win most of the seats.

The system heavily discourages formation of new parties, because even if a new party can get as much as 25% of the votes, their candidate will not win, and all they have done is spoil the chances of the other candidate whose positions is closest to their own.

Ranked Choice Voting

One way to change this, is to use Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), where instead of just voting for one candidate, you can indicate your preference for each candidate in ranked order, i.e. my first choice is A, my second choice is B. When the votes are counted, the candidate with the least (first choice) votes is identified, and their ballots are then redistributed to the candidates indicated as the second choice and so on until the leading candidate reaches 50% of the valid votes.

This allows people to vote for a new party, and observe its strength without detracting from the chances of the realistic candidate they can best live with. Over time, there will be more parties competing and eventually one of the newer parties will be a contender for winning.

Multi-Seat Super Districts

Another way to allow more differentiated interests to be represented is by consolidating election districts into larger "super districts" that each elect 5-10 representatives. Almost all European countries do this in some form. This will allow for the seats to be apportioned relatively proportionally to the number of votes each party gets. It requires some rules to insure that while the primary distribution priority is to give the parties their proper number of seats, the popularity of the individual candidates is also taken into accounts.

In many American states, this means that congressional candidates could run in a single statewide district, thus eliminating the possibility of "gerrymandering". But in a handful of states such as California, Texas, Florida and New York, districts still need to be drawn.

There are 10 states with more than 10 million population, 12 that elect more than 10 representatives.

California elects 52 Representatives to the House, so there needs to be at least 6 districts (but no more than 10), such as

You may get ideas for natural districts from this page listing statistical areas of California. The districts should attempt to fulfill as well as possible the following goals:

To compensate for variations in district size, you can

It will be near impossible to achieve all the goals of perfect redistricting so some amount of good judgment and common sense will be required. Which is a dangerous thing to rely on! But allotting a dozen statewide seats for adjusting the proportionality to be correct at the state level will mitigate this somewhat.

What Are the "Natural" Parties These Days?

I think the groups whose interests need to be balanced are more or less the conventional ones: These have been around for a long time, although they have morphed over the years. At the time of the American and French revolutions, the "rich people" group was Nobility and large land owners, while the intellectuals were mostly the Church (Catholics or Episcopalians) with some philosophy also promoted by rich people with a University education, which moderated the potential for egocentric exploitation somewhat. Today, I would note the following additional groups having distinct interests: Parties can also form around ideas, such as

I would say that the Republican party (in its natural shape as a center-right party) is a coalition of

and the natural constituents of the Democratic party are

And big business and wealthy people have tried to co-opt both parties by donating to both, so that whoever gets elected may feel indebted to them.

Yes, this is a little cartoonish, but the diverse interests are real.

Reduce the Power of Money - Especially Big Money

Some ideas to think about:

And I don't know how to get (back) to that from where we are now.

In Conclusion

I have been ruminating on this for years now. I finally started drafting this paper in the Fall of 2025, and now I think I need some feedback. Please share your ideas in an email with a subject line of "Elections Feedback".

More pages

These blog pages are found at http://www.beagle-ears.com/lars/pages/

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