As states from Texas to California to Florida debate and vote on new electoral maps, Americans are both learning about — and often disgusted by — the scale of gerrymandering in their states. The result is that many voters from both parties don’t feel represented in Washington. Surveys show that four out of five believe elected officials do not care what people like them think. Two-thirds feel they have no voice at all. These are not just feelings of frustration, they are symptoms of a structural flaw in how we draw electoral districts and elect our representatives.
The winner-take-all system is at the heart of the problem. In every congressional district and nearly every state legislature, a single candidate takes the entire prize. If Republicans make up a third of the electorate in Massachusetts, or Democrats a third in Oklahoma, they win nothing. Voters who consistently find themselves on the losing side are effectively disenfranchised, left without any representative who shares their views. That is not an accident but the predictable outcome of the rules we use.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has studied this issue carefully. Its bipartisan working group of scholars, lawyers and advocates concluded that proportional representation offers a way forward. Instead of electing one representative per district, we could elect three, five or more, with seats allocated in proportion to the votes received. A group with a significant minority of support would no longer be locked out altogether. They would be fairly represented, which is the foundation of any healthy democracy.
The costs of winner-take-all are plain to see. It makes gerrymandering easy and effective. It deepens polarization by forcing every conflict into a two-party death match. It muffles minority voices, whether partisan, racial or ideological. It raises barriers for electoral competition, entrenching incumbents. It convinces millions of citizens that their votes do not matter and that staying home is rational.
We are now watching the logical endpoint of this system play out in real time. Texas and California began what has become a multistate argument over redistricting, each pushing the boundaries of partisan mapmaking to squeeze out every last seat for their side. These high-stakes battles are costly, destabilizing and ultimately futile. As long as winner-take-all remains the rule, both parties will race to weaponize the lines on the map.
Proportional systems reduce these pathologies. Other democracies that use proportional systems consistently show higher turnout, more accurate representation, more competitive elections, and less polarized partisan animosity. This is not speculation but the lesson of comparative evidence.
There is historical precedent for this in the United States. Illinois elected its state legislature for more than a century with a semiproportional system that both Democrats and Republicans later praised for curbing gerrymandering and broadening representation. And even the Founding Fathers, long before proportional representation as such had been invented, often spoke of their desire to achieve more proportional outcomes in elections.
Congress inadvertently cemented this problem in 1967 when it mandated single-member districts for the House. Congress could amend that law and let states choose proportional systems for their delegations. A typical design might involve districts with three to eight seats. For example, if a party wins about a quarter of the vote in a four-seat district, it gets one seat. States also can, and should, move to reform their state legislatures along similar lines.
The Academy’s working group has also recommended expanding the House by at least 150 members. This would restore the closer connection the framers intended between constituents and their representatives, while allowing smaller states to experiment with proportional systems because fewer would have only one or two seats. The result would be more voices, more competition, and more responsive government.
No reform is a cure-all. Proportional representation will not make Congress instantly functional or erase partisanship. But it would move us away from the vicious cycle of unresponsive institutions breeding disillusion, which in turn breeds more unresponsiveness. It would begin to create a virtuous cycle, where institutions reflect the public and citizens feel their participation matters.
Pete Peterson is dean of Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy, and a member of the American Academy’s Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship. This article was originally published by RealClearPolicy and made available via RealClearWire.
