Owen Barnes Professor Raynaldo Composition and Rhetoric 1302 11 April 2024 Electoral Reform in the United States The United States voting system should be reworked because the currently used voting system is flawed and biased. While the Simple Majority Voting System and Single-Member districts, which are the current voting systems being used in the United States, do have advantages over other electoral systems, these small advantages are far outweighed by the advantages of other electoral systems. There does not exist a single electoral system or combination of electoral systems that are perfect in every, or even in a single, way. Though, this does not mean that electoral reform shouldn’t or couldn’t happen. The Ranked Choice Voting system, …show more content…
As a result of this convolutedness, many critics will also argue that the Ranked Choice System is actually worse in terms of representation. Specifically, critics argue, one critic, Dr. McCarty, claims in his article that “[Ranked Choice Voting] disproportionately decreases the representation and electoral influence of minority voters”. Dr. McCarty explains that this happens because “[minority voters] disproportionately ‘exhaust’ their ballots thereby removing them from decisive vote tabulations.” While these claims are not untrue, they do not necessarily hold merit either- it’s essential to take into account the effectiveness of a voting system varies greatly depending on context and a Every single voting system has potential pitfalls that are almost inevitable to arise as an issue at some point in time; despite this, the Ranked Choice Voting system, while not perfect, has been shown in multiple studies to improve the representation of both minorities and the majority through the curtailing of gerrymandering, political polarization, and other forms or causes of unfair democratic government. In conclusion, electoral reform is needed in the United States, as