Innovation is key to strengthening democracy and confronting contemporary political challenges, from hyper-partisanship and polarization to governmental gridlock and dysfunction. ERN's Kevin Johnson discusses how to improve our country’s political health and secure democratic governance for future generations.

Adopting best practices from other countries is an opportunity to buttress policies and procedures that make US elections free and fair and draw inspiration from others facing the same challenges.

This presidential election reform concept would end winner-take-all for the electoral college votes (which is not in the Constitution). Instead, states would allocate their electoral votes proportionally to the top vote-getters in the state.

The traditional method of simple plurality for determining the winner in U.S. election works well when two candidates are running. But in crowded races – such as primaries – this system can easily result in winners with low percentages of the vote, who may not be preferred by the majority.

Simple plurality works well enough when few candidates are running, but in crowded races it can easily result in winners with low percentages of the vote, who may not be preferred by, or even be in step with, the majority.