Nearly all elections in the United

Nearly all elections in the United States are based on the winner-take-all principle: voters for the candidate who gets the most votes win representation; voters for the other candidates win nothing. This system is unjust and unnecessary. It is unjust because it leaves minorities (whether racial or political) unrepresented. As John Stuart Mill said, "It is an essential part of democracy that minorities should be adequately represented. No real democracy, nothing but a false show of democracy, is possible without it."1 It is unnecessary because we have immediate opportunities, at local, state, and national levels, to join the vast majority of mature democracies that have already adopted systems of proportional representation.
Proportional representation (PR) is based on the principle that any group of like-minded voters should win legislative seats in proportion to its share of the popular vote. Whereas the winner-take-all principle awards 100 percent of the representation to a 50.1 percent majority, PR allows voters in a minority to win their fair share of representation.