Dear Editor,

Over the past few years, there has been a lot of negative sentiment in the American public about the current election system. Many complain that the winner-takes-all system of the congressional elections is too unrepresentative of the population’s preferences, most notably the supporters of the candidate from the losing party. Additionally, gerrymandered districts limit some people’s representation in Congress. Thus, we would like to put forth a bill known as the Fair Representation Act, designed by FairVote.org, that promotes better representation in the voting process.

There are three components to this Bill. First is the implementation of ranked choice voting. Instead of voting once and casting a vote for the candidate who may be slightly more favored in one’s mind, one can choose to rank the multiple candidates in order of preference. When a majority is not reached in the election, the citizens’ next ranked votes are used to narrow down the winner to the candidate with the most support. There are many advantages to this plan, mainly in the form of direct citizen involvement and a more fair voting process.

Next, the districts that were formally winner-take-all will now be distributed into multi-winner districts representing bigger populations of people. With multiple winners, the party affiliations of the winners will be in accordance with the amount of people, in percent, supporting that particular party in the district. For example, if the district is split approximately 60/40 rep-dem, then two republican candidates and one democrat will be selected as winners.

In addition to a more fair voting process, part of the plan calls for the implementation of independent commissions. In these commissions, paid consultants will no longer be responsible for drawing district lines. Instead, ordinary citizens will be in charge of the redistricting process. By making the process open and inclusive, we will avoid creating gerrymandered districts.

With these facts and advantages laid out, we sincerely hope that the US government will consider passing this plan in hopes of revitalizing the US voting system.

Thank you,

AP Government Advocacy Group