One of the greatest aspects of America is diversity. We are a people of every color, every race, every religion, and every genealogical heritage. We are indeed the great "melting pot", and I love that. That diversity makes us stronger. Almost no idea can go unchallenged or unwelcomed here, which means confusion and, dare I use the verboten word, some chaos, but the result is that we have a fabulous range of choices available to us.

Americans are taught to believe we live in a democracy, and that our right to vote allows us to control our destiny, yet less than half of us bother to vote. Are Americans just unconcerned, lazy citizens, or do we believe that our vote really doesn't make a difference? It certainly isn't that we aren't encouraged to vote. We see campaign material all around us, we get phone calls prompted us not to forget to vote, and we're told that if we don't vote, we can't complain about the results. It's our DUTY to vote... our responsibility as citizens.

How do we stack up against other democracies?

A recent study by the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance found that in national elections since World War II, the United States ranks 103rd in voter participation out of 131 democracies.

The Center for Voting and Democracy, in their report "Dubious Democracy", examined the bulk of national races... those for the U.S. House... and has this to say: 

[M]ost Americans, most of the time, experience "no choice" House elections. They live in political monopolies where the talk should be of creating a two-party system, let alone one with viable third parties.

They lay the blame for our non-competitive elections on two factors:

1. A winner-take-all electoral system that turns natural majorities into no-choice elections

2. Partisan methods of redistricting that allow legislators to craft districts "safe" from competition -- legislators literally choose their constituents before their constituents choose them.

Less than one in three adults voted for the U.S. House member who represents them.

The average victory margin in U.S. House races was 40% -- meaning winners on average won more than 70% of votes cast in their race.

397 of all 403 incumbents were re-elected -- that is a success rate of 99%! More than two-thirds(285) of seats are held by incumbents who have won their last two elections by "landslide" margins of least 20%

Simply put, we have an electoral system that has allowed 2 political parties to dominate to the point that the voters really have nothing to say about it. No matter how bad our representation gets, with our current system, there is very little that voters can do about it. Voters who are dissatisfied with both parties, or with the candidates of those parties, clearly have no way to make their vote count.

In a Minnesota Public Radio interview,  Larry Jacobs, University of Minnesota political science professor, reiterated that the electoral rules are biased in favor of the two major parties, leading to strategic voting that further understates third party support. Jacobs found it remarkable that third party support is as strong as it is in spite of the odds against them. He said this reflects a deep sentiment for alternative voices. In response to several callers who advocated election reforms such as Instant Runoff Voting and proportional representation, Jacobs insisted that reform efforts face stiff odds and that change is unlikely. However, with the undeniable persistent strength of third parties, Jacobs allowed the possibility that "where there is a will, there is a way."

Libertarians have accepted that optimistic view for more than 30 years, with a message that rings true to a very large number of people... rings true, that is, if they've even been fortunate enough to have heard it. The simple if unpleasant fact is that our election system is so rigged that other parties or candidates have no chance of breaking through. Campaigns, even though the result is rigged, are also so expensive that minor players are overwhelmed, and further handicapped by laws written specifically for that purpose... by the 2 ruling parties.

A great many voters will continue to vote for candidates of the party they chose decades ago. For those voters, they've made their minds up long ago, pay little attention now, and choose to believe the lies their own party offers rather than the lies of the other party. They've listened with rapture to their own party demonize the other, scaring them into continuing to vote just to defend against "the bad party".

Many more voters will vote for the party that seems most likely to continue giving them the financial advantage they get at the expense of others, and those voters are likely to contribute money to campaigns. They're voting for their own pocketbooks. Democrats can count on support of unions, countered by Republicans receiving more from business people. Each party will try to respond, unobtrusively, often secretly, to their own financial supporters. In so doing, they cheat all of us who don't fall into either camp, and create resentment and divisiveness throughout the nation.

Is there a better electoral system... one that would give us real representation? Is there one that can prevent the sort of dictatorial 2-party we're suffering under?

There is a better system, called proportional representation, and it's used in most of the free nations on earth, including Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Greece, Spain, Austria, Australia, Mexico, Portugal, Japan, Russia, Italy, Ireland, Israel, Poland, Hungary, Iceland, New Zealand, Brazil, Nicaragua, Norway, Finland, Venezuela, Scotland, Wales, and the United Kingdom (for European Parliament elections)

There are several forms of proportional representation (PR), but they all attempt to produce results in which all voters are represented... not just those who happened to pick the "winner".

All of our legislative districts allow the election of only one person, which means that only the majority of those voting will be represented. Even though we pride ourselves on protecting minority rights, our election system gives minorities almost no representation at all.

As quoted from Science News: "It's a terrible system," says Alexander Tabarrok, an economist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and director of research for the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. "Almost anything looks good compared to it."

Proportional representation has voting districts that elect several representatives. That affords the possiblity, for example, that the majority viewpoint might win 5 of 10 total seats, another smaller set of voters might get 3 seats, with a third set getting the remaining 2 seats.

Other voting systems abound. One alternative is the instant runoff, a procedure used in Australia and Ireland that eliminates candidates one at a time from rankings provided by each voter. Another is the Borda count, a point system devised by the 18th-century French mathematician Jean Charles Borda, which is now used to rank college football and basketball teams. A third is approval voting, used by several scientific societies, in which participants may cast votes for as many of the candidates as they choose.

Let me introduce you to what has happened in Costa Rica over the past 10 years, in the words of Otto Guevara , their first Libertarian congressman, speaking to the U.S. Libertarian Party national convention in 2002:

Costa Rica has been governed by either of two political parties that have been stealing our individual freedoms a little at a time, year after year.

Costa Rica is a socialist country where the State has monopolies on insurance, telecommunications, oil refining, access to Internet, and even in the production of liquor. Further, 93% of students are subject to a total public school indoctrination which glorifies the State, which also runs banks, trains and grocery stores, and forces all workers to pay for compulsory health care and pensions which are a fraud.

Costa Rica is also socialist because the State has created an average annual inflation of 18% for more than 25 years. Further, the tax burden on the average Costa Rican consumes about 50% of his salary. That means that two thirds of one's salary is stolen by the State.

Perhaps the most important point that I wish to make to you today, my American libertarian brothers and sisters, is that what allowed us to get into the national Congress was Costa Rica's electoral system of proportional representation. In Costa Rica it works like this: the 57 legislative seats are distributed between the 7 provinces based on relative population. That is how San José province, the most populous, is assigned 20 seats, which the voters of the province could elect. And I was elected because I obtained about 5% of the vote in San José, which is equal to the proportion of one over twenty seats.

Incredibly, from no party at all in 1994, Movimiento Libertario has gone from Guevara's single victory to now having 10% of the legislative seats. One of the libertarian legislators is Vice President of Congress, and another is the Chair of the equivalent of the Ways and Means Committee, which reviews and votes on the annual government budget. Movimiento Libertario spent an average of just $36,000 for each legislator elected. No party has a majority, so legislative issues are discussed and debated, with results that must satisfy a majority of viewpoints.

Rather than being captive to two monstrous, corrupt parties, America could have a representative election system that would allow a variety of viewpoints to be heard and represented.

The two embedded parties will never have any incentive to improve our election system. Doing so would reduce their own power. Our Supreme Court could, and should, rule that one-member districts are unconsitutional because they result in grossly unequal representation.