The crisis in American democracy has reached a breaking point. Public trust in government is collapsing. Congress is paralyzed by factional gridlock and performative polarization. And across the political spectrum, voters feel alienated from a system that no longer reflects the country's political complexity or offers voters candidates they can truly relate to. This report begins with a simple premise grounded in democratic theory: In a well-functioning democracy, voters should be able to choose from parties and candidates that reflect some approximation of their actual values, interests, and worldviews. And when the ideological or cultural landscape shifts, the system should respond – not with inertia, but with new coalitions, policy concepts, and competing visions for the future. However, the current configuration of the U.S. electoral system tends to short-circuit that process of organic adaptation. Instead, the two-party framework compresses a deeply complex and diverse electorate into a structure that rewards polarization and ultimately makes democratic responsiveness nearly impossible. The resulting stagnation has produced a cascade of institutional and civic dysfunction, and a growing sense among American citizens that representative democracy is no longer capable of solving real problems. Reform advocates have championed a variety of promising structural interventions in the electoral system, including ranked-choice voting (RCV), proportional representation (PR), and nonpartisan primaries. But while these reforms have gained ground in some states, overall progress has been fragmented and slow-moving. One part of the challenge is strategic: the electoral reform ecosystem today for the most part lacks a shared messaging framework or a coordinated strategic roadmap, which makes it difficult to engage allies, persuade skeptics, and sustain public interest across election cycles. Another part of the challenge is rhetorical: electoral reform measures are often framed – in campaign materials, in the media, in public discourse – in fundamentally legal and/or procedural terms that obscure their deeper purpose of revitalizing pluralism in American democracy. Drawing on insights from strategic planning theory, democratic scholarship, and interviews with advocates and stakeholders across the reform landscape, this report proposes two linked initiatives designed to meet these challenges: More Better Choices is a communications campaign framework intended to unify diverse electoral reform efforts under a single, resonant message. It shifts the debate from legal design to democratic legitimacy, and from how votes are counted to whether voters feel that they and their choices matter. And it reframes reform as an opportunity not just for voters, but for legislators and party leaders to build more coherent coalitions and reassert democratic leadership in an era of institutional decay. 6PC is an interactive multimedia project that simulates a functioning six-party Congress and offers a vivid and accessible way for Americans to experience what a more pluralistic democracy could look like. Together, these efforts aim to build narrative momentum, engage a wider range of stakeholders, and lay the groundwork for long-term structural change.
Eamon Doyle (Fri,) studied this question.