Americans’ celebration of 250 years of independence invites reflection on the Declaration of Independence, upon which rested the case for a new nation exemplifying the values of equality, liberty, democracy, and ongoing renewal. Those values were compromised from the beginning, of course, but they remain a beacon to guide where our nation must go to live up to its promise.
Toward that end we have much work to do. Democracy is under profound stress here and across the globe. Twentieth-century rules and norms are straining under twenty-first century realities: increasing polarization, declining consumption of traditional media, rising economic inequality, and loss of trust in political parties and governing institutions. Americans in 2024 elected a president eager to push the boundaries of autocracy and kleptocracy. And the establishment party stranglehold on elections seems tighter than ever.
But out of the ashes can come hope. Pushing back against Donald Trump necessitates recognition that simply restoring old norms within the current rules will fail, as the Biden presidency proved all too well. Hope derives from the observation that there is a rising tide of voters frustrated with the two-party duopoly. Our nation has previously seen major advances for democracy in the wake of the Civil War, the Progressive Era, and the 1960s. Sustaining American democracy surely depends upon a new and even deeper wave of structural change. That change must be multi-faceted and comprehensive, but electoral system reform is a bedrock. Here’s a rundown of what is within reach.
Presidential elections by popular vote: The current Electoral College system is a deeply unpopular and undemocratic eyesore. Having electors pick the president after being chosen on a winner-take-all basis in states is unwieldy—and indefensible in a modern democracy. Those rules led presidential campaigns in 2024 to spend more than a billion dollars to influence voters in just a handful of swing states while considering the outcome in the rest of the states essentially preordained. Even more lamentable is how, in 2016, Donald Trump won the White House despite decisively losing the popular vote.
There’s nothing in the Constitution requiring these enervating rules. So it’s encouraging to note that the campaign for the National Popular Vote interstate compact has been making steady progress. The compact is a straightforward law grounded in state powers protected in the Constitution. Participating states agree to award their electoral college votes to the winner of the popular vote nationwide. When activated, the popular vote winner is guaranteed to win the White House. To provide that guarantee, the compact must become law in states that collectively hold an Electoral College majority of 270 votes. To date, 18 states and the District of Columbia, representing 222 electoral votes, have joined the compact, most recently Virginia this past spring. After the November 2026 elections several new states may be in a position to adopt the compact and provide the 38 electoral votes necessary to activate the agreement, including Arizona (with 11 electoral votes), Michigan (15 votes), Nevada (6 votes), Pennsylvania (19 votes), and Wisconsin (10 votes). That means we could have a popular vote for president as soon as 2028, though opponents are likely to take the compact to court and Congress may be required to provide consent before it is used. Nonetheless, the biggest change in our elections since the Voting Rights Act may be within reach.
Ranked choice voting in our highest-level elections: Ranked choice voting (RCV) now decides presidential elections in Alaska, Maine and Washington, DC and is employed to elect Governors, Members of Congress, and leaders of major cities around the country. By allowing voters to rank candidates in order of choice and upholding majority rule by eliminating the “spoiler” effect, RCV gives voters a better chance to register their true preferences.
Major scaling of RCV depends on two factors: The first is having RCV mechanisms become a “turnkey” option—that is, election officials should be able to flip a switch to offer RCV ballots and have results provided as quickly, easily, and transparently as in non-RCV elections. The technology for this already exists. With it increasingly in place the issue becomes: can we muster the support to build upon RCV’s commendable record to persuade politicians to adopt those mechanisms? In that respect there has been an encouraging pattern of local and state RCV campaign victories. Perhaps federal-level implementations could be in the offing as soon as 2029 if a reform-minded Congress assumes power.
Proportional representation for Congress and states: The most intriguing new reform development has been growing recognition that proportional representation is superior to winner-take-all elections. I worked on a city campaign in Cincinnati to adopt proportional representation (PR) all the way back in 1991. During the ensuing decades, while FairVote achieved some PR successes, including local wins and the introduction of the Fair Representation Act (H.R.4632 – stipulating PR for all House elections), proportional representation has not yet resonated as much as other initiatives like RCV, automatic voter registration, and the National Popular Vote compact. But recently the critique of winner-take-all elections has been gaining currency. Voters increasingly resent feeling trapped into picking the lesser of two evils.
Comprehensive electoral system reform could soon be on the agenda due to alarm about manipulation of the existing system. This past year Republicans broke the norm against mid-decade gerrymandering of congressional districts. Democrats responded in kind. The consequence is that we’re in a downward spiral resulting in ever-fewer competitive seats, more distorted representation, and less opportunity for constituents to build a relationship with their representatives. On top of that we just witnessed one of the worst Supreme Court rulings in American history. The Louisiana v. Callais decision struck down Louisiana’s 2024 congressional map, claiming that its second majority-Black district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The 6-3 conservative ruling eviscerated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, one of the crown jewels of the civil rights era. To make winner-take-all elections more representative of historically marginalized racial minorities, the Voting Rights Act required state and local governments to create opportunities for minorities to elect candidates of their choice. Now that’s gone, and several southern states apparently feel they’ve received the Court’s blessing to immediately redraw districts in such a way as to gut racial minority representation.
PR could address these problems. It’s the norm in most of our peer democracies because it promotes the principle that like-minded voters should be able to elect candidates in proportion to their share of the vote. It’s already used locally in the United States in some places, including since 2024 in Portland, Oregon. Congress, by statute, could adopt forms of PR for congressional elections within states. Groups like FairVote, Protect Democracy, New America, More Equitable Democracy, and RepresentWomen are leading an energized conversation for this kind of comprehensive change. The PR Hub has formed with funding of more than $60 million to support change in the states.
Supreme Court reform, revamping the Senate filibuster, a constitutional right to vote, and other hopeful developments:
* Retrograde decisions on the part of the current Supreme Court have led to momentum for Congress to enact court reform measures and other pro-democracy federal legislation.
* Senator Jeff Merkley has laid out a path toward reforming the filibuster so that Senate priorities could be passed by majority vote.
* There is recognition that money in politics has grown exponentially more problematic in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United opinion. So, with the support of American Promise, 25 states have endorsed a constitutional amendment to enable the states to regulate campaign spending (38 would be needed to pass the amendment).
* A campaign to enhance state oversight of corporate charters in order to challenge insidious dark money will be tested on the ballot in Montana this November.
Congressional, state, and local actions are being proposed to remedy the degradation of the Voting Rights Act, protect voter access, and facilitate innovations in how we cast ballots. Progress in these areas of reform depends upon citizen engagement. Visit Expand Democracy to find ways you can be a part of the change.
