Unfortunately, with so many people vested in and accustomed to our current two-party, winner-take-all system, changing how we elect our political leaders would be difficult. However, proportional representation is legally possible under the existing constitutional and statutory frameworks. The Constitution does not even mention political parties, and the founders warned against them.
In my view, with the rise of Donald Trump and the more extreme factions controlling the parties, and the moderate, sensible center shrinking, I think it is time to question the way we govern ourselves.
Below is the conversation:
Ralph Bristol:
THE NEW NORMAL?
ORLANDO, Fla.—Rep. Byron Donalds, President Trump’s staunch ally, cruised to victory in the Republican contest in Florida to succeed Gov. Ron DeSantis, while a Democratic socialist, state Rep. Angie Nixon, scored an upset win in the Democrats’ Senate primary.
Is it my imagination or is there less and less room in politics for anyone other than a staunch Trump ally and a Democratic socialist?
I'll bet a lot of people are feeling "disenfranchised." I know I am.Michael Dioguardi:
I did not know Donalds was fully aligned with Trump but listening to interviews with him in months past, he sounded sane and reasonable.
Michael Dioguardi Hopefully he serves the people of Florida first and does not have his nose up Trump’s behind like Ogles did.
The larger question about socialism and Trumpism is spot-on, but I think the deeper problem is structural. Our primary system and single-member districts reward the most partisan and intensely motivated voters, then force everyone else into a winner-take-all choice between candidates they may not actually support.
The answer to that is often, “Then people should vote in the primary.” But voting in a primary does not make the resulting system representative. A primary selects one candidate for a party. The general election then selects one person to represent an entire district containing people with many different political views.
Nobody is forced to vote, but the structure does force a winner-take-all outcome. If 45% vote for A and 55% vote for B, B receives 100% of the representation. Those 45% do not become represented simply because they had the opportunity to vote.
The result is predictable. Candidates have an incentive to appeal to the most partisan voters in the primary, then personalize the general election around defeating one opponent rather than persuading voters with competing ideas. The problem is not simply the candidates. It is the electoral structure that continually produces these incentives.
Consider a moderate Democrat or Republican faced with candidates representing the extremes of their respective parties. Whichever party wins, that voter may still have no meaningful representation. After repeatedly being told that the choice is between two candidates neither of whom represents them, apathy is hardly surprising.
Proportional representation changes the equation. A vote for a minority viewpoint can become a vote for actual representation rather than merely a vote against the candidate you fear most. That is the fundamental distinction between having the right to vote and having a reasonable expectation that your vote will produce representation.
Rod Williams
How would that work in a congressional district? In Tennessee's 7th, Republican Matt Van Epps defeated Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn in the December 2, 2025 special election. to replace retired Rep. Mark Green in Nashville.
Rod Williams Final vote totals were approximately 180,000 votes. Matt Van Epps received 97,034 votes (53.9%), and Aftyn Behn (D) received 81,109 votes (45.1%). So how would proportional representation work?
In the Dem primary, Democratic participation was about 31,002 voters.
Aftyn Behn 8,653 27.9%
Darden Copeland 7,720 24.9%
Bo Mitchell 7,498 24.2%
Vincent Dixie 7,153 23.1%
I understand ranked choice, which, if we had it, would most likely have resulted in Bo Mitchel being the nominee. I would have voted for him. Not that I would prefer his policies, but I think derailing Donald Trump's agenda is important. I could not vote for nut-job socialist Afyn Behn, however, and voted for Vam Epps.
So how would proportional representation worked in the primary and the general election?
Michael Dioguardi
The first thing to understand is that proportional representation would not simply take the existing congressional districts, the existing two parties, and divide the existing election results among multiple seats. That would miss the entire point.
Under PR, the districts would be larger and multi-member, and the number of seats assigned to each district would be determined by the system adopted. More importantly, the political dynamics would change. If voters knew that a party receiving 10%, 15%, or 20% of the vote could actually win representation, they would have far less reason to abandon that party and vote strategically for one of the two major parties.
We would therefore likely see more parties competing and different coalitions of voters emerging. The electoral map would not simply produce a proportional version of today’s Republican and Democratic vote totals. It would produce a political landscape that more accurately reflects the range of views that actually exist.
That is why I would not use the Van Epps/Behn result to say, “54% would get this many seats and 45% would get that many.” That assumes today’s two-party SMD election would somehow exist unchanged under PR. It would not. The point of PR is to change the incentives so that voters can support the party or political philosophy they actually prefer and have that support translated into representation.
There is another important part of this. PR would not simply give the existing Republican and Democratic factions more seats. It would change the incentives that produce those factions in the first place.
Today, a voter who is politically moderate may have little choice but to identify with whichever major party is closer to them, even if neither party actually represents their views. Meanwhile, the most intensely partisan voters have disproportionate influence because they dominate primaries and determine which candidates emerge.
Under PR, those dynamics change. The more ideological voters could have a party that genuinely represents their views without having to capture one of the two major parties, while moderates could likewise support a party that actually reflects their preferences. Instead of forcing the entire political spectrum into two parties and then allowing the most motivated factions to fight for control of them, PR allows that spectrum to be represented by multiple parties.
So the point is not simply to take today’s election results and divide them among multiple seats. The point is to create an electoral system in which the political choices themselves become more representative.
Rod Williams
Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for the explanation. So, we would have far fewer, much larger districts? Would such a system require a much larger Congress? Are there examples of democracies having such a system?Michael Dioguardi
You are correct. And yes, there are plenty of real-world examples. Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, and Finland are all examples of countries whose national legislatures are elected through proportional representation rather than the single-member-district system used by the United States and United Kingdom. Germany and New Zealand are also proportional systems, but they use mixed-member systems, so I would not include them in this comparison.
The important point is that PR does not simply take today’s two-party election results and divide them among multiple seats. Once voters know that smaller parties can actually win representation, the incentives change. Voters have a reason to support the party that actually reflects their views, which produces a political landscape far more diverse than the two-party system we see today.
And any concerns one may have about PR are mitigated by the Senate as the body representing each state because the Senate preserves the federal principle. The House would represent the people proportionally, while the Senate would continue to represent the states equally, regardless of population or political composition. One chamber would therefore reflect the diversity of political opinion among Americans, while the other would protect the sovereignty and interests of the states.
Rod Williams
So, would this eliminate primaries?
Michael Dioguardi
Yes, it would, and that is one of the significant advantages of PR. The exact mechanics depend on whether an open or closed list is adopted, but either way the current primary system becomes unnecessary.
With a closed list, parties would determine their candidates and voters would choose among parties in the general election. The idea here is that voters are primarily choosing a party based on its ideals and platform rather than choosing one individual candidate.
With an open list, voters could choose individual candidates within each party directly in the general election. That also recognizes that a party is not necessarily ideologically uniform. A Republican ballot, for example, could include several Republican candidates with different views, and voters could decide which candidates receive seats. The idea here is that voters choose both the party whose ideals they support and the candidates they believe best represent those ideals, even when there is not complete uniformity among the candidates.
After the votes are tallied, seats are allocated to each party based on the percentage of the vote that party receives. In an open-list system, voters can choose among as many candidates as the electoral rules permit. If a party hypothetically fields 50 candidates but earns enough votes for only five seats, the five candidates with the strongest individual support would receive those seats. There is no requirement that the party limit itself to a single candidate, as it must under our current single-member system.
That eliminates the need for a separate primary whose purpose is to select one candidate to represent an entire party in a winner-take-all contest. More importantly, candidates would no longer have to appeal disproportionately to the most partisan voters who dominate primaries. They would have to persuade voters in the general election, while voters would have more choices both between parties and within them. That is another way PR changes the political dynamic: instead of forcing diverse viewpoints into two parties and then forcing each party to choose one person, it allows that diversity to be expressed directly through the general election.
If you would like to join the conversations, follow or friend me on Facebook.
Michael Dioguardi is a friend of mine living here in Nashville and along with three or four other well-informed, smart people, we get together once a month for a dinner to discuss current events and ideas. He is a residential property manager in Nashville and is an independent blogger writing under the title Seeker of Liberty. Drawing on years of dedicated study of the U.S. Constitution, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, landmark court decisions, and Austrian School economics, he analyzes contemporary challenges to individual liberty, institutional accountability, and economic stability.
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