Eight Reasons to Champion Proportional Representation for the U.S.

American democracy is going through turbulent times. The causes behind the country’s turmoil are many, but one important factor is the single-member district plurality system used for electing members of the House of Representatives and of most state-level legislative assemblies.

Also known as a winner-take-all system, this electoral system is associated with many of the current ailments of American politics. Fixing these problems will require upgrading the American electoral system to proportional representation, a tried-and-tested system used around the world that ensures fair representation through multi-member districts and formulas that allocate seats to parties in proportion to their votes.

Calls for a proportional system for the U.S. have gained urgency with the fraying of American democracy: over 200 scholars have written in support of it, many organizations are working on research and advocacy to help make it happen, and some members of Congress are starting to show interest in moving away from the winner-take-all system.

The momentum behind proportional representation is often met with much suspicion and many concerns about whether it would represent an improvement for our political system. These concerns are part of a healthy and necessary dialogue for such a momentous reform, but here I want to outline eight reasons why I am optimistic that proportional representation would be a major upgrade for the United States.

1. More Parties and More Choices for Voters

In proportional systems, more than one candidate can win office in a district. So even if a party is not the most popular it can still win a seat, making it worthwhile for smaller parties to run their candidates. Voters have meaningful choices on the ballot—not only do they have more options, but they can vote for their preferred candidate without necessarily wasting their vote.

2. ...But Not Too Many Parties

The more seats per district, the more parties the system can sustain. Citing cases like Brazil (where the number of seats per district ranges from 8 to 70), the Netherlands (a nationwide district of 150 seats), or Israel (a nationwide district of 120 seats), many fear that proportional representation would mean a proliferation of parties that would make politics unwieldy and governance challenging. The U.S. would avoid this problem by having districts allocated at the state level: even if the House were expanded to 593 members (another important reform that complements proportional representation), the maximum number of seats in a district would not have to exceed six and many states would have smaller districts. Together with other institutional design features, like vote share thresholds for parties, low-magnitude districts would help the U.S. achieve electoral sweet spots, balancing representation with a manageable number of parties.

3. Better Minority Representation

Minorities—ethnic, political, or otherwise—have an easier time winning legislative seats in proportional than in majoritarian systems. Not only are minor parties viable in proportional systems, but because additional votes help a party win additional seats, major parties also have incentives to include minorities as candidates in their lists to appeal to a wider group of voters. In majoritarian systems, minorities have to be regionally concentrated to elect their candidate of choice or hope that the majority splits their vote.

4. Higher Voter Turnout

A main function of elections is to aggregate the views of the electorate, but if many voters are not showing up to vote, elections provide a distorted view of what the electorate wants. Turnout rates have increased in national level elections in the U.S., but they are still behind many countries and are quite low in local races. Research from different contexts shows that places that switched to proportional systems experience greater voter turnout. This is due to a combination of factors: voters being able to vote for their preferred candidate without wasting their vote, more choices on the ballot, and parties having strong incentives to mobilize voters to get more votes that help them win more seats.

5. Enhanced Accountability

Another function of elections is to keep politicians accountable. To do so, voters need information about politician performance and, importantly, viable alternatives. Multiple representatives per district can make it more difficult to get that information—another reason to keep the number of seats per district low. But, proportional systems are more likely to provide alternatives that can make voting a meaningful tool for accountability: voters dissatisfied with a representative in their district can vote for another candidate on the same party’s list or they can vote for a candidate from another party that is close to them ideologically. In the current American system, electoral accountability has been short-circuited: most legislative elections are uncompetitive and the ideological distance between the two parties makes it difficult for voters to defect from one party to the other. And if you were hoping primaries would keep politicians accountable, good luck: an estimated 75 percent of Democratic primaries and 60 percent of Republican primaries were uncontested in 2024.

6. Reduced Polarization

Some fear that because proportional systems are friendlier to niche and smaller parties, voters will become entrenched in ideological or identity-based bubbles that promote tribalism. Most research disagrees with this claim. Scholars have found weak and inconsistent correlations between proportionality and ideological polarization. Affective polarization—the degree to which partisans dislike members of other parties—is higher in countries with majoritarian electoral systems like the United States. One factor contributing to lower affective polarization in proportional systems is that parties often have to govern in coalition: voters feel more warmly towards parties that have been in governing coalitions with their own party and express lower dislike towards an out-party when they are told that it might join a coalition with their preferred party. Research also shows that proportional systems prevent ethnic identities from becoming too salient when voting. More parties competing in elections means more parties can compete for the votes of an ethnic group—some on ethnic grounds and others with non-ethnic issues—splitting the group’s vote and preventing the electorate from being neatly divided into ethnic groups.

7. More Ways to Deal With Extremist Parties

Because small parties can win and survive in proportional systems, skeptics argue that proportional representation would leave the country vulnerable to extreme parties. This feels like a quaint concern given the current state of American politics and perhaps misguided. Proportional systems may actually provide more ways to deal with extremist parties. Multiple parties can isolate extreme parties that win seats—the so-called cordon sanitaire strategy that many European countries have used with far-right parties. Multiple parties also often compel an extremist party that wins seats to moderate or reach consensus since it wouldn’t be able to govern alone. Electoral victories by extremist parties in proportional systems provide useful signals of growing discontent that other parties can heed in their policymaking, without the extremist party taking over immediately. In the American two-party system, the electoral path to power for extremist forces is by working within and capturing an existing major party, leaving few off-ramps available once that party is captured.

8. Effective Governance

More parties, more electoral competition, improved minority representation, higher turnout, and enhanced accountability all add up to effective governance—the ability to take multiple voter demands and provide public policy solutions to societal problems. Lots of research backs this up. Policymakers in proportional systems are more responsive to voters and provide policies more aligned with public opinion. Countries with proportional systems also have greater social welfare spending and provide more public goods than those with majoritarian systems (this is largely because the electoral fortunes of legislators in proportional systems depend on a wider voter base). Of course, no electoral system is magical and countries with proportional representation face many serious governance challenges, but at least proportional representation gives voters realistic and meaningful electoral mechanisms to voice their demands, express discontent, and push for new alternatives in the collective search for solutions to social problems.

• How To Fix America's Two-Party Problem? (Lee Drutman and Jesse Wegman for The New York Times, 2025)
• Can Proportional Representation Lead To Better Governance? (John Carey and Oscar Pocasangre, 2024)
• Proportional Representation and Presidentialism: Yes We Can (Lee Drutman and Scott Mainwaring, 2023)
• Why U.S. Elections Only Give You Two Choices (Vox Video)