If you rank the 34 indus­tri­al­ized nations that are mem­bers of the OECD (Orga­ni­za­tion for Eco­nom­ic Co-oper­a­tion and Devel­op­ment) by the per­cent­age of the vot­ing-age cit­i­zens who cast bal­lots in their lat­est nation­al elec­tions, the Unit­ed States comes in fourth-to-last. In the 2012 gen­er­al elec­tion, 47 per­cent of vot­ing-age Amer­i­cans stayed home.

One way to increase turnout would be to switch to a voting system that actually encourages participation.

One way to increase turnout would be to switch to a vot­ing sys­tem that actu­al­ly encour­ages par­tic­i­pa­tion, such as ranked choice vot­ing (RCV). Instead of vot­ing for a sin­gle can­di­date, vot­ers rank as few or as many can­di­dates on the bal­lot as they like. If no can­di­date imme­di­ate­ly receives a major­i­ty, the can­di­date with the fewest votes is elim­i­nat­ed, and those vot­ers who ranked that can­di­date num­ber one have their vote instant­ly trans­ferred to their sec­ond choice. This process is repeat­ed until a can­di­date wins a majority.

RCV allows the vot­er to vote their con­science with­out wor­ry­ing about being so-called spoil­ers. For exam­ple, if the U.S. pres­i­dent were elect­ed through RCV, Bernie Sanders could run as an inde­pen­dent, and the white work­ing-class Democ­rats, young folks and inde­pen­dents who make up his base could vote for him as their num­ber one choice — and then list anoth­er can­di­date, such as Hillary Clin­ton, as their sec­ond, just in case Sanders didn’t win.

This Novem­ber, vot­ers in Maine will decide by pub­lic ref­er­en­dum if they want to switch to an RCV vot­ing sys­tem for all state and con­gres­sion­al elec­tions. If RCV had been in place in 2010 in Maine, it is unlike­ly that Repub­li­can Gov. Paul LeP­age would have been elect­ed, since he won only 38 per­cent of the vote in a five-way race. LeP­age most recent­ly made head­lines when he blamed Maine’s drug epi­dem­ic on ​“guys with the name D‑Money, Smooth­ie, Shifty.” He said: ​“They come from Con­necti­cut and New York, they come up here, they sell their hero­in, then they go back home. Inci­den­tal­ly, half the time they impreg­nate a young, white girl before they leave.”

Fair Vote, a non-par­ti­san elec­toral reform orga­ni­za­tion based in Tako­ma Park, Md., is pro­mot­ing RCV around the coun­try. The sys­tem is cur­rent­ly used in cities such as Min­neapo­lis; St. Paul, Minn.; San Fran­cis­co; Berke­ley, Calif.; Cam­bridge, Mass.; and Port­land, Maine. Fair Vote is also cham­pi­oning a more rad­i­cal reform — pro­por­tion­al representation.

Lat­er this year, Rep. Don Bey­er (DVa.) will intro­duce the Fair Rep­re­sen­ta­tion Act, which would require that mem­bers of Con­gress be elect­ed from mul­ti-mem­ber dis­tricts through RCV.

Such a sys­tem would encour­age the cre­ation of third par­ties. For exam­ple, were this pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion vot­ing sys­tem in place in Okla­homa, all can­di­dates for the state’s five U.S. Hose seats would run in one statewide district.

That would give pro­gres­sives in this red­dest of the red states a rea­son to go to the polls in Novem­ber, as it would guar­an­tee at least one of Oklahoma’s five U.S. House seats would be won by a left-lean­ing Demo­c­rat — or even an inde­pen­dent social­ist. After all, on March 1, demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ist Sanders won 52 per­cent of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic vote in the state’s pri­ma­ry. No sur­prise there: Okla­homa has a sto­ried social­ist tra­di­tion. In the 1914 midterm elec­tion, one in five Okies vot­ed for the Social­ist Party.

For an ail­ing democ­ra­cy, the only cure is more democracy.