With the 2020 presidential election as an appropriate backdrop, it seems like as good a time as any to finish this old draft I began many months ago (I began compiling this entry in Nov. 2019). It’s about ideas for reforming our country’s election system, something that badly needs to happen — assuming our goals are increased fairness in voting, better outcomes, and more qualified leaders at all levels.

Most U.S. citizens favor voting reforms if the question is asked generally enough. Some of the most popular reforms I’ve seen in surveys and polls include (1) automatic voter registration, (2) term limits, and (3) ending the electoral college — though the third only applies to the presidency. In my circles, term limits is easily the most asked for change to the way we select our leaders. Perhaps oddly, term limits is the idea I like least among various proposals I’ve seen.

Below, I list a multitude of ideas for fixing our broken election systems — and by extension our entire representative democracy. Most of these, I’ve mentioned at various times in older entries (many of which don’t exist anymore), but I wanted a single resource to point to when relevant. A few of them are worth entire entries on their own and if I write those separate entries, I’ll link to them from this page.

Hopefully, it doesn’t need to be said, but none of the ideas are original to me; each was proposed years ago, in response to particular problems with our country’s government and election processes. Each was thought up by someone more informed than I am. Each has its detractors and supporters.

Wait. There’s Something Wrong With Our Election System?

On the off-chance you’re unaware of any problems with our electoral process, the rest of this entry might not make sense to you. Please pay more attention to elections and news stories related to voting, voting rights, representation, and so on. This entry assumes the reader is already aware of the ubiquitous problems.

Worth Noting

As usual, I welcome disagreement, especially if it comes with informed and well-reasoned arguments (because this is how I become more informed and make my arguments better). I know there are downsides to each of these ideas (and I’ll mention some of them), and I realize that many of these are in the “well, that’ll never happen” category. I’m willing to be disabused of my notions with solid arguments in the comments.

It should also be made clear that none of these “solutions” is a cure-all. At best, each of them would improve one small segment of our voting/election system.

And it’s worth noting that in many ways our electoral system in the U.S. is better than it used to be. Through a couple of centuries, we’ve already improved over the naive, sexist, and racist plans of our founders in powerful ways — ensuring that women can vote, for example. But we still have miles to go.

Categories

One last thing before I begin listing and discussing the proposals is that they fall into different categories of reform. A few apply to civil rights — protecting the franchise and ensuring that everyone who should get a say does get a say. Some are about the efficiency and cost of the system — making it work better in the most general sense of that word. Others are about the outcome and whether it’s a fair representation of the will of the people.

Term Limits (No)

I’ll start with this one because it’s the request I see and hear most from peers. Why not term limits? We have them for president; some states impose term limits on the governor or other offices; people seem to like them, right?

The reason for term limits — the reason most people want term limits — is that once elected, some folks just seem to stay in office forever, regardless of their efficacy or ethics. This seems especially true of U.S. Senators, some of whom have been in place for 40 years or more (like Don Young, R-Alaska, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont). Incumbents have the advantage of the power of their office and name recognition. Once entrenched, it can be difficult to pry them loose.

But that’s only a problem when those elected officials are bad, right? If you actually like your senator or representative or governor, if they’re accomplishing things and improving the system and doing whatever it is you want them to do, then term limits would be a bad thing. It would mean having to start over with your state’s seniority in Congress, discovering an entirely new candidate to fill the role, and might mean your next representative is less reliable than your old one — at least the incumbent has a record of past votes in that very office; the next one is untested.

I believe that elections are supposed to function as term limits. In other words, if you don’t like your senator, vote her out. Don’t like your governor? Vote for the challenger. But it doesn’t work, you say, because other voters are too uninformed, the incumbent advantage is too great, or the district is too gerrymandered. But those aren’t arguments for term limits; they’re arguments for better-informed voters, reducing the inherent advantage of incumbents, and/or ending gerrymandering once and for all. (We’ll get to all three of those below.)

End The Electoral College

I’m 100% in favor of ending the Electoral College, and have been since I first heard of it. I’m aware of the arguments for keeping it, and I think they’re bunk.

“It’s so less-populous states won’t be ruled by the more-populous states!” (This is the primary current argument, not closely related to the original reasons.) People — typically conservatives — worry that if we switch to a popular vote, then populous states like California and New York would decide the presidency, while voters in Wyoming and Arkansas wouldn’t have a say. Of course, that’s not true. “One person, one vote” would mean each voter, regardless of where she lives, would have the same say as any other voter. Instead, what we have is voters in Wyoming and Arkansas getting disproportionate power in choosing the president, far more say per person than voters in more populous states. So we (occasionally) end up with most U.S. voters choosing one president while the Electoral College chooses another.

(Granted, it doesn’t happen often, but it’s incredibly frustrating when it does happen. To my knowledge, there have only been five presidents who got into office while losing the popular vote: John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush, and TAINTUS. But the fact that it can happen means that candidates campaign almost entirely in swing states once their nominations are secure.)

Abolishing the Electoral College is often considered a pipe dream because it would require a constitutional amendment. However, certain activists realized there is a way around that. A current effort underway, called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, looks to subvert the Electoral College if enough states agree. Already, 15 states and D.C. have adopted it, but it won’t take effect unless enough states adopt it to affect the outcome. The compact agrees that each state will award all its electors to the winner of the popular vote, which would make the Electoral College merely an obsolete formality. While I support this idea, I would rather pass a Constitutional Amendment that does away with the E.C. altogether (because the NPVIC isn’t permanent; any state could choose to pull out at any time).

For me, the only downside of going through the effort to end the Electoral College is that it only affects two offices in the entire country (president and vice president), and even them very rarely.

Ranked Choice Voting

In November 2019, New York City became the latest city to adopt “ranked choice voting” — though it only applies to a handful of top positions. The idea, also known as instant run-off voting, is that instead of voters being forced to choose only a single candidate, voters rank their choices on the ballot from first to last. If no candidate wins a clear majority of first-rank votes, then there is an “instant run-off”, in which the last-place candidate is eliminated and any ballot with that name in first place uses its second-choice candidate as first place. On it goes until someone wins a majority.

When I first heard of it, my gut reaction was “it seems complicated.” Fortunately, I’ve learned to put my gut reaction on hold until I get more information. What I learned is as follows. It saves money by eliminating costly runoff elections. It tempers the campaigns because candidates can focus more on issues and voters than on attacking opponents. My hope is that such a system, if implemented more widely, would encourage voters to learn more about each candidate, rather than choosing a side and fighting off any information to the contrary.

Maybe the biggest advantage (in my mind) is that it would hurt the two-party stranglehold in the United States. Currently, any voter who would prefer a third-party or independent candidate is basically wasting her time if she actually votes that way, because 99% of the time the winner will be either a Democrat or Republican. If a large enough chunk of people vote third-party or independent, it can “spoil” the election. Because of this, many indpendents like me vote for a major party even when we don’t really want to. But with ranked-choice voting, I could list my third-party candidate first, the Democrat second, and so on, knowing that in the likely event of my first choice losing, my vote will still go to the Democrat (instead of spoiling her chances and handing a victory to the GOP). To be clear, it gives no advantage to the Left; voters on the right would have the same freedom to vote for their Libertarian or Constitution Party candidate, listing a GOP stooge in second place, and so on. It would give all of us that freedom of mind, in every election.

And, in the rare occasions when a third-party candidate is actually the preferred choice, they could actually win, instead of all of us being forced by conscience to vote major party.

There are some costs associated with implementing the system, especially the first time — because counting the votes becomes more complex. And there would be a slight learning curve for voters. I don’t think either of these are insurmountable obstacles; the first is made up for by longterm savings; the second is another symptom of our sick electoral system and something else we can work on.

Last year, The Guardian published a piece explaining the idea for anyone who’s still lost. (There are other good explanations out there, including the Wikipedia article above.)

Parties could (and should) use the same idea during primaries. Much of the infighting during the Democratic presidential primaries leading up to 2020 was, I think, due to desperation. We must choose only one, as all of us know. Some chose their single candidate due to agreement on the issues, others based on personality, and still more selected who they thought would be the best bet to beat TAINTUS in November. But the entire process could have gone more smoothly with ranked-choice voting. (This would go hand-in-hand with another suggestion below — to hold all the primaries on the same day.)

End Gerrymandering

Most U.S. voters (regardless of party) favor ending the practice called “gerrymandering”, though politicians (especially Republicans) are loathe to do anything about it. Of course, not everyone understands what it means — I regularly saw people post on Facebook that senators were elected through gerrymandering, which is absurd.

Gerrymandering is the practice of re-drawing electoral districts to favor one party or another. Thus it has no effect whatsoever on presidential elections, statewide elections (senator, governor, etc.), countywide elections (like sheriff), or citywide elections (like mayor). Its worst effects are seen in districts for the U.S. House of Representatives, though to a lesser degree it also has an impact on state legislative districts, city council zones, and so on. Since each state gets to re-draw its districts every ten years (after each census), and since the re-drawing is controlled by whatever party controls the state at that time, gerrymandering tends to favor the party currently in power in that state. The idea is to put as many opposition party voters as possible into the same districts — so in future elections the opposition might win its districts by 90% or more, while the party in power can win a greater number of districts with smaller majorities.

It’s one thing to say “end it”, but it’s another thing entirely to write a policy or law that would be effective. First, we must take into account that the districts actually do have to be re-drawn (because the Constitution requires it, based on Census totals in each state), and that the people doing the re-drawing are probably going to have political leanings. Some have suggested letting computers draw the districts, but I’m not convinced AI is ready to account for physical geography — sometimes district borders have to take into account a river or mountain range, for example (though gerrymandered districts often ignore those too). And we don’t want district boundaries to cut through apartment buildings or even through the middle of a house. In other words, the process is going to be difficult, no matter how we do it.

But I think we should try.

The big obstacle here, if we’re looking for state-level bans, is that the current parties in charge of each state don’t want to hurt their own chances at staying in power. If we want a national law, the big obstacle of course is the Senate — which isn’t proportional in representation but instead gets most of its seats from relatively empty conservative states. If we want a Supreme Court decision to end gerrymandering, that might be even harder with so many anti-democratic justices rammed through in my lifetime. Not to mention that SCOTUS flat-out said in 2019 that it won’t do anything about it.

Informed Voters

There’s no question that many voters are ill-informed. I don’t even mean the ones who know slightly less than I do, or how a highly-tuned political operative might consider me to be ill-informed. I mean the voters who don’t even know which party controls each house of Congress, the voters who can’t name the current vice president, and so on. This means that in most elections, a significant number of voters get a ballot, look at it, and don’t recognize most of the names, even federal and state-level candidates. And even for many of the names they do recognize, many voters will have false impressions of them. How do we solve this?

The causes of this are numerous, from voter disillusionment, intentional misinformation campaigns, exhaustion with (and therefore avoidance of) political news, a tendency to get information from social media and memes and pundits instead of generally trusted news sources, and more. That means the solutions have to be numerous too.

Some of the solutions to “low-information voters” are the very election reforms listed on this page. If the system becomes more fair, less corrupt, more efficient, etc. — and if public perception follows that trend — then at least some people will become more interested in the process. Most of the time, I’m at a loss to think of other solutions for this particular problem.

One proposal I’ve heard anecdotally dozens of times is “there should be some sort of test” before a citizen can vote. Noted conservative blowhard Ben Shapiro recently proposed exactly that. He’s aware, of course, that many states used to do exactly that — part of the Jim Crow laws meant to disenfranchise African American voters — so he made sure to say that isn’t what he wanted, but rather “the idea that you’d have to have a basic knowledge of America’s Constitution, for example, in order to vote”. This of course, flies in the face of the ideal that voting is a right. As much as I want voters to better informed, I definitely don’t want an arbitrary test that in all likelihood would be used to further disenfranchise U.S. voters.

Another idea meant to counteract misinformation is that social media companies ought to be more heavily regulated, or at least do more to counter factually untrue information spread on their sites. Unfortunately, I’m not convinced a legal requirement for Facebook to delete false information would go very far toward informing U.S. voters. (I do think the idea deserves more looking into; much of the information on the site is simply dangerous — even deadly. And especially since Facebook can’t be trusted to police itself for false information — while I worked on this entry, the current president ran multiple untrue ads, about the Census, about the election, about Joe Biden, etc. — and Facebook did nothing.) If nothing else, major social media companies cracking down on outright falsehoods might keep things from getting worse.

One thing I would certainly like to see happen is an increase in news media responsibility. And I’m not necessarily talking about “bias” in the news media. Naturally, some outlets will prefer certain policies or candidates and that will be reflected not only in their editorial stances but in what and who they choose to cover. But I am talking about terminology, headline writing, and other things that easily mislead. I’ll mention just one egregious example I saw repeatedly in 2019 and early 2020: “Super Tuesday” and “election day”. These phrases pound into readers’ (and viewers’) heads that elections take place on a single day, which just isn’t the case in many states. For example, in Texas, early voting is available more than two weeks prior to election “day”. Even the phrase “early voting” implies some sort of cheat or workaround. Simply calling it an “election” would help a lot. Media can do better to emphasize that elections take place (in many states) for weeks, not merely on a single day. Instead, they pretend it’s a single day (“Don’t forget March 3!”) because it’s fun for photojournalists to capture images of long lines on Tuesday.

Consolidation Of Voting Laws/Policies

Since registering to vote at the age of 18, I have relocated across state lines four times. One thing I noticed immediately is that each state has different rules governing elections. The laws differ on who is eligible to vote, how to register to vote (and how difficult it is), whether a voter has to specify a party (and what that implies), when you can vote, where you can vote, voting methods, how to notify authorities you’ve moved, whether early voting is allowed and for whom and for how long, who can vote by mail, what type of identification is required (if any), how often inactive voters are purged from rolls, and so on. In some states, the rules differ by county. Not only does this patchwork approach to voting discourage people from re-registering in their new locales, but it discourages participation. Additionally, it’s an incredible waste of time and money to have such contradictory laws and rules and procedures — especially when it comes to national elections.

I mean, if Houston and Chicago want to have different rules for how their respective city councilors are chosen, that’s one thing. We can stipulate that differing regions of the country often have unique circumstances that require state- and county-level differences. But when each state differs on how I can vote for president or U.S. senator — federal positions — it’s asinine.

One example is the recent hot-button issue in a handful of states — whether former felons can vote. It’s allowed in some states but not others, and each state that allows it has different rules for how to regain the “right” to vote. (Notably, all states include the convicted felons in their population counts that determine their representation in the House and Electoral College.)

Federal elections should be governed by federal rules.

An obvious upside to national election rules is that people who move from one state to another (as I have done) would have a much easier time voting in each new state. Over time, I think it would save everyone money to eliminate local-level election boards and state-level rules that contradict rules in other states. (Imagine if each state had an equivalent of NASA, and the federal version of NASA was mainly just some loose guidelines for what the states can and can’t do. Would we have ever gone to the Moon?)

Consolidating election rules into a single federal agency would also make it easier to implement the other reforms I have in mind, because it wouldn’t require lobbying 50 seperate state legislatures.

(One other thing each state does differently is party primaries — not only the method but when it occurs. I address this elsewhere on this page.)

Simultaneous Primaries

Instead of all 50 states (and assorted terroritories) jockeying for position, primaries for federal elections — especially president — should be held on the same day nationwide, with the same rules. Elminate caucuses, for example, and have each state award its delegates the same way.

Some argue that the early primaries and caucuses help eliminate stragglers from the race and give remaining voters a better sense of who’s doing well. However, the former becomes irrelevant if we implement ranked-choice voting, and the latter isn’t a good reason to vote for someone. Others argue that if all primaries were on the same day, the candidates would pour all their money and time into the most populous states and ignore most of the country. But that’s not a reason to avoid this improvement — it is instead a reason to implement still other improvements like shortening the election season and limiting the money involved in elections. It’s a reason to end the Electoral College.

Instead, we have billion-dollar campaigns spending the bulk of their early money in Iowa or New Hampshire and their late money in swing states. Which is weird to me because the actual physical location of the candidates and their ads should be nearly irrelevant in the digital age.

Shorter Election ‘Seasons’

We live in the Information Age. We don’t need two years to find out the candidates’ views on the issues. It doesn’t require two years for candidates to raise funds (and they would need less funds if the time frame was shorter). Media organizations don’t need two years to ferret out each candidate’s gaffes from the past, voting record, employment history, etc.; that can be done in a matter of days. For most candidates, there are already databases of this information available to everyone.

Many of us decide fairly early in the campaign season who we want to vote for. If our candidate drops out, we either decide not to vote or decide on the next most-similar candidate. The infamous “undecided” voters aren’t helped by a two-year campaign either; they either don’t vote or decide at the last minute; that wouldn’t change with a shortened campaign season.

I say hold the primaries no more than five or six months before the general election, say in May or June — early enough to hold runoffs if necessary. If we implement ranked-choice voting then runoffs become instant and we can hold the primaries in July or August.

That still allows three or four months for the final party candidates to campaign and debate.

The time frame and expense can be even shorter due to eliminating the party conventions — because with ranked-choice voting, simultaneous national primaries, and consolidated federal voting rules, the voters choose the candidates. (Parties could still hold conventions if they want to, of course, for hoopla’s sake.)

The only things accomplished by long, strung-out election seasons is a very gradual narrowing of the field and a bonanza for news media. Not to mention voter burnout, which contributes to fewer people showing up at the polls.

Eliminate Party Machinery From Primaries

One thing I mentioned in an early 2016 blog entry was “eliminating the party machinery from the primary process”. The idea is that voters become cynical and less likely to participate in elections if they believe candidates are being chosen by backroom deals between delegates and party elites — instead of by the voters themselves. However, I think the party machinery is automatically removed with some of the other reforms listed on this page. If not, this could be one of the consolidated federal voting rules. With primaries moved to the same day and ranked-choice voting, the need for party machinations vaporizes.

Undo Voter Restrictions

“Restrictions on voting” is fairly nebulous. It can be construed to mean anything that makes it more difficult to vote. For example, several states closed dozens of polling locations not long after the Supreme Court gutted the Civil Rights Act. Multiple states have added or strengthened voter ID laws (based on spurious claims of widespread voter fraud) — changes that disproportionately target the the poor, people with disabilities, and minorities. Another “restriction” is what my area does — change our polling place from one election to the next. It means that not only do I have to keep track of any upcoming elections, but I also have to — every time — search out the county’s election board website and find out where my newly changed polling place is. Not everyone has the time or wherewithal to search this out each time. Another tactic used in many states is “purging the voter rolls”, which is actually a necessary process because voters die or move away, but the act always snares someone who doesn’t find out until they show up to vote and it’s too late to re-register.

There are only two sides to this issue: (1) those of us who believe every adult U.S. citizen has the right to vote, and (2) those who want to keep certain demographics from voting because doing so helps them to win elections.

Change Election Day

Tuesday might not be the worst possible day for national elections (it’s probably better than Monday or Wednesday, for example), but it’s still a poor choice. It’s a work day, and a school day. If we must have a lone, single day to call “Election Day”, it should be on a weekend, when far fewer people are at work. If it must be on a weekday, then it should be, as so many have suggested, a national holiday — though that again disenfranchises the less-well-off, who rarely get off work for national holidays.

(Even better, of course, stop calling it “Election Day” and expand voting options that happen on other days, like early voting, mail-in ballots, and even — someday, perhaps — online voting. I know the news media love videoing ridiculous lines where people waited seven hours and didn’t get to vote until 2 a.m. the next day, but we can do better.)

If Not Online Voting, At Least Internet Assistance

Someday, I like to think, we’ll vote on the internet — kind of like how I filled out my 2020 U.S. Census forms this year. I envision receiving a text alert on or before election day, including a link to my actual secure ballot, which I can click and then fill out and submit from the comfort of my [wherever I am, because my phone has internet]. I understand there are security concerns; we can assume any number of interested parties would take a crack at hacking the process. But until we get that sorted out, surely the internet could make the process less painful than it is currently.

For example, eligible voters should be able to at least register online. (According to a federal court ruling, it’s supposed to happen for the first time in Texas this year.) And there is probably already some automated system that can send a text message alert to remind people to vote, but it certainly isn’t a nationalized or subsidized system, nor is it very well publicized. Election board websites use notoriously poor design standards, with inconsistent page layouts, hidden menus, and dead links. A fifth of the way through the 21st Century, that’s just embarrassing. Every election when I go online to search out where the polling place has moved to, I have to click through several pages of nonsense before I find what I’m looking for.

One more thing where the internet could help: More than once I’ve been in the voting booth and saw a candidate or race or state question that I hadn’t yet heard of. Instead of impulsively clicking, I’d sure like to pull out my phone and search for ten seconds before casting a vote. But that’s illegal in Texas (and many other states too). My phone, like yours, contains a camera, and cameras are prohibited anywhere near the polls — I’m not willing to risk having my ballot thrown out over such a small thing, so I don’t do it.

None Of The Above

One reform that almost no one likes (except me) is adding “none of the above” to the ballot for every race. I have known many people who said they didn’t vote in a particular election because they didn’t like any of the choices. (And many states don’t have write-in slots.) The rest of us choose the “lesser of two evils”, or, shockingly, the greater of two evils. If there was a “None Of The Above” option, and if that option won, then the existing candidates would be dumped and all new candidates would have to run. Yes, people laugh out loud when I suggest this, but I think it would go a long way toward (1) improving voter turnout, (2) dismantling the two-party stranglehold on our political system, and (3) actually ending up with candidates that inspire our confidence and respect. Instead of choosing between a giant douche and a turd sandwich (South Park reference), we could vote for someone we actually want. This could work even with ranked-choice voting.

Required Voting (No)

One idea that went around several years ago was compulsory voting (and the idea is still making the rounds). Just like term limits, I don’t like this idea, and for a similar reasons: it’s anti-democratic. Sure, it might increase the turnout (something I agree we need). But many people don’t vote for good reason. Some, of course, are actively discouraged from voting (see voting restrictions, above) or outright disenfranchised — like convicted felons in many states. But even perfectly eligible voters who have no trouble getting to the polls might have a legitimate reason not to go. And that counts as their vote. During the mid- and late 1990s, I didn’t vote. I was uninformed about the candidates and issues, and was so exhausted from working 60-80 hours per week that I might have marked the ballot wrong even if I did vote. Some people don’t have an opinion or simply don’t want to vote. I think those people should have the right to sit it out, thereby increasing the relative power of my vote. We can increase voter turnout without resorting to such draconian measures.

Increase Voting Options

Some states have plenty of voting options while others are more limited. I think more people would participate if more options were readily available in more places, like in-person voting in the weeks leading up to the final day, mail-in ballots (with fewer restrictions), and (someday) voting online. Of course, this part would be easier with consolidated federal voting rules.

The Reduction Clause

One suggestion, which I’ve only heard from one person (here), suggests following the Constitution and reducing the representation in the House of Representatives for states that deny their citizens the right to vote. The author of the piece is a law professor, so surely he knows more than I do. He says the “Reduction Clause” of the Constitution allows for such a procedure, though he admits it doesn’t say who would enforce it, or how. He doesn’t address how such a thing would pass with anti-democracy regressives controlling the Senate and the Supreme Court — the same court that already gutting the Voting Rights Act and is just fine with state infringing on citizens’ right to vote.

More

While I lazily put off finishing this entry for nearly a year, I came across several online pieces (like this one), which suggested some of the above, and a few others. Some other suggestions I might fill out someday: end the filibuster, eliminate registration altogether, better funding for elections, tax credit for voting, fix the Senate malapportionment, and better public financing for candidates (to keep wealthy donors from controlling elections).

What’s Standing In The Way?

As noted, some of these reforms are more popular than others. What’s keeping them from being enacted? One thing is that elected officials have very little motivation to do anything about it. From the Texas Tribune: “one of the fundamental rules of electoral politics: It is difficult to get elected politicians to make big changes to the voting systems that put them in office in the first place.” Inertia is of course another obstacle. “We’ve always done it this way” is a powerful brake on any reform effort. And yes, there are real costs associated with each of these changes (though some of them, like ranked-choice voting, will supposedly pay for themselves over time). It’s not free to keep polling places open for extra days of early voting, nor is it free to mail millions of ballots, maintain election board employees, etc. It isn’t free to set up websites, maintain security on electronic voting machines, and so on.

While cost is a real barrier, it seems to me that it’s one that we can overcome, especially for something so important as the foundation of our democracy. Interestingly, opponents to these reforms rarely mention the cost. When an actual voting reform bill was passed by the U.S. House in early 2019, the Senate (controlled by Republicans) refused to bring it to a vote, calling the bill a “power grab” — apparently worried that fairer elections with more citizens participating would remove the GOP from power.

Conclusion

There is obviously political will behind many of these reforms. As Vox noted in its 2019 piece about Republicans stonewalling the voting rights bill, the reforms advanced are popular across the political spectrum — among citizens. They are less popular among politicians, specifically GOP office-holders, who know they represent a minority of the U.S. (not only is the slim GOP majority in the Senate representative of far less than 50% of voters, but the last two GOP presidents got into office while losing the national popular vote). An obvious solution is to stop voting Republican, which most of the U.S. has already done. The news media can do more to drive home how popular these reforms are and who, exactly, is opposing them. Social media giants can do more to keep misinformation from spreading across their sites, but they’ve been pretty happy with the status quo. And, of course, citizens like you and I can continue to stay aware and as informed as possible while still attempting to live our lives, and vote accordingly.

Some of these reforms will never come to be, I know. Others? Maybe. If we’re careful, resilient, and stay actively involved in the process.