Kathrine Frich
Most citizens have never heard of the idea, yet they instinctively back its core values.
Going to the supermarket and finding only two brands on the shelf feels frustrating.
Imagine if that was how you had to choose the people running the country.
Millions of voters feel exactly that way right now, and they are finally demanding a completely different menu.
Time for a change
Americans are growing tired of limited political choices. A recent poll shared with NPR reveals a massive appetite for ripping up the old rulebook.
Instead of winner-take-all elections, voters want proportional representation. This setup elects several lawmakers in a single district to match the actual vote share.
Fix Our House and New America ran the survey. They found that half of the 1,000 participants supported this shift.
Shocking the experts
The results caught researchers completely off guard. Most citizens have never heard of the idea, yet they instinctively back its core values.
“It really did shock me how supportive people were of the various principles of proportional representation across the board,” New America senior fellow Lee Drutman told NPR.
The idea reaches across the political divide. Six out of ten Trump voters who held an opinion on the matter backed the new approach.
Pollsters also warned participants about downsides like messy coalition governments. Drutman noted that “for every one of those questions, people prefer the proportional system with multiple parties,” according to NPR.
Craving new options
Some worry that more parties could empower extreme voices. But voters simply brushed off that specific concern.
“One thing people said is they already think the parties are pretty extreme right now,” Drutman explained to the news outlet.
Jocelyn Kiley from the Pew Research Center pointed out a widespread desire for reform. She noted that nearly 70 percent of people polled by Pew wish they had more options.
“People want to understand exactly how that reform will impact them,” Kiley told NPR, warning that support often drops when theories become laws.
Expanding the House
Almost no one knows the actual name of the system. Only about two percent of people surveyed could name proportional representation from memory.
“But when asked about the kind of underlying values beneath it and the component parts, there was widespread support from all across the political spectrum,” Fix Our House executive director Dustin Wahl told NPR.
The survey found that 54 percent of respondents support adding 150 new members to the House of Representatives.
Sources: NPR, Pew Research Center
