William Yardley

Opinion contributor

Do you think candidates and parties that win the most votes should also win political power? If the answer is yes, go find another country.

Sure, Republicans gained two seats to expand their control of the Senate in the recent midterm elections. But they also got crushed at the ballot box. Democrats won 59 percent of the overall Senate vote while Republicans won 39 percent — a margin of nearly 18 million votes! And although Democrats won the House and the House popular vote there, the House must have Senate approval to pass legislation.

Add in the fact that Donald Trump was elected president in 2016 based on the Electoral College despite receiving nearly 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, and a strong case can be made that the United States is being governed by a false majority. In broad terms, the people in charge won fewer votes than those in the "minority."

Of course, the founders established the Senate and the Electoral College to protect the states, not to reflect the national vote. Yet whether they envisioned the extremity of the current situation is up for debate. Regardless, don’t look for Congress to amend the Constitution any time soon. Whoever is in power rarely wants to change the rules that put them there.

Except, maybe, in Canada.

Americans should keep an eye on Canada

In a measure on the ballot this fall, voters in British Columbia were asked if they wanted to end false majorities in their province. The referendum, drafted by the current governing coalition of the center-left New Democrats and the more liberal Green Party, asks what should matter most: outdated rules that politicians and parties exploit to their advantage, or the will of the voters?

By merely posing the question — again, raised by the controlling coalition, no less — the referendum underscores concerns that extend well beyond BC. The push for the referendum began nearly two years ago, soon after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau drew sharp criticism for backtracking on a promise to reform national elections. Perhaps Trudeau had second thoughts because he was elected in 2015 with just 40 percent of the vote.

The system BC voters are considering is called proportional representation and it happens to prevail among many major democracies around the world — including Germany, Denmark, Portugal and New Zealand. Election officials at all levels in America would be wise to watch what happens.

Although there are many differences in how elections work in the U.S. and Canada, there is an important common theme: both separate the overall popular vote from ultimate political power. They are among just four developed countries that still approach elections this way. The United Kingdom and France are the others.

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The voting system the four use, called first-past-the-post, often gives complete power to candidates and parties most voters oppose. In some cases, the unfairness is taken for granted. In the U.S., gerrymandering in House races has made it almost certain that one party will always win and another will always lose — at least until the next round of gerrymandering. Ask voters in minority parties in the U.S. how that feels. Ask conservatives in blue cities. Ask progressives in red rural areas. How do they feel? Irrelevant.

Reform advocates want to end the injustice. They want all votes to matter. Evidence shows that proportional representation, while not perfect, gets much closer to the goal than first-past-the-post.

The idea is as straightforward as its name: instead of awarding a single seat in a single-winner district, proportional representation gives voters the power to elect more than one representative in proportion to the percentage of votes they receive. If a party receives 22 percent of the vote, it gets 22 percent of legislative seats.

This system bypasses gerrymandering and even good-faith attempts at fair redistricting. It effectively slices districts into pies shared by all voters rather than drawing nonsensical boundaries to secure thin party margins. It is an antidote to false majorities.

Proportional representation is fair and inclusive

Proportional representation allows more voters to have their voices heard. It nurtures coalitions instead of stoking division. It is more inclusive of voters and candidates who have traditionally been underrepresented, including women and minorities — and anyone else frustrated by the dominance of two political parties. In short, it is fairer.

The idea has critics, but their complaints have little merit. One often cited is that proportional representation will empower fringe groups like neo-Nazis. Yet other countries have routinely found ways to avoid this by setting minimum voting thresholds that parties must meet in order to win seats.

The British Columbia vote, conducted by mail, ended on Friday and is being counted this week.

In the U.S., the good news is that voters have begun demanding reform — and they are increasingly getting it. Look at Maine, where earlier this year state voters passed a measure approving ranked-choice voting. In seven other states, voters approved anti-gerrymandering, anti-corruption and voting rights reforms on the 2018 midterm ballot.

Now, British Columbia is getting its chance — to improve its voting system and, perhaps, inspire its southern neighbor.

William Yardley is a senior fellow at Sightline Institute and a former national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times. Kristin Eberhard, who leads Sightline’s research on democracy reform, contributed to this column.