It is pretty obvious that most people are sick of the Democrats and Republicans in the USA.  However, I believe with the current winner takes all system that it is almost impossible for other parties to get elected in state and national elections.  If I wanted to vote libertarian or another party then my vote would most likely be worthless.  It would be nice to know that my vote actually means something rather than be tossed out.  I believe that we need to go from a winner takes all election process to proportional representation.  I view the electoral college, winner takes all and two party systems in a very negative light.  I was wondering what you guys think would be the best way to solve this problem? 

the best solution would be for people to vote for people of different parties. problem solved

So you are fine with a winner takes all system?  So if your politician or party loses then you are content with having no representation?

We are not a winner-take-all system of government.

A WTA system of government is one in which the party with the greatest percentage of elected officials controls government.  That's not the case in the US.  Republican's may, for example, currently control the House of Representatives, but they don't control the Senate or the Executive branch.  Therefore, you still have checks and balances. 

While we may appear to be a two party system, we aren't entirely two party.  There are in fact independents in both the Senate and House, and third parties do often win elections on the local or state level.  The problem typically with third parties are the fact that they have a tendency to make promises that they just can't fulfill.  Not because people object to what they believe or have proposed, but because what they've proposed usually won't work or will break more than it will fix.

The UK has a Winner-Take-All system of government.  Once a party wins a majority or once a coalition of parties is formed, they can pretty much do anything they want.  Same way with local councils.  Councils work on the majority rules principle and if Labour wins the majority then they can set the agenda and govern the local area the way they want. 

And third parties don't always do well with their intentions.  Look at the LibDems in the UK, they formed a coalition government with Conservatives and it ended up hurting them in the long run rather than securing more power for the future (as they had hoped).  The Tea Party was initially a boon for the Republican ticket as many Tea Party people aligned themselves with Republicans, however they've since hurt the Republicans by fracturing the party even worse than it was during the 2008 election. 

The problem with Republicans are simply that they have considerably aligned themselves away from the Roosevelt Republicans of the early 20th Century to the right.  First with McGovern Republicans, then Reagan Republicans, and now a mutated abomination given birth by Rove and Bush.

The odd consequence of this is that it's actually shifting the Democratic party to Left-Center, making it a more moderate party than in the 1980's.

What will ultimately happen is that a party will form to the left of the Democratic Party, the Republican Party will disintegrate and become a shell of its former self, and for a while we'll have a three party system with the Democratic Party being largely moderate but progressive, the Republican Party being arch-conservatives much like the Tea Party is today, and on the far left a Liberal party far more socialistic than the current Democrats.

I was mainly referring to the winner takes all is how our elections are decided.  The winner of the election goes to office while the losers go home.  I would rather see a system where if a party gets 20% of the votes then they get about 20% of the seats (proportional representation).  This would ensure that almost everyone's vote actually does count.  If I vote for libertarian or green party and they only get 10-20% of the vote then my vote is worthless.  However, if they got 10-20% of the seats due to proportional representation then my vote actually mattered.

"The most common system, used in Canada, the lower house (Lok Sabha) in India, the United Kingdom, and most elections in the United States, is simple plurality, first-past-the-post or winner-takes-all"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_voting_system

"I believe that we need to go from a winner takes all election process to proportional representation."

Nailed it. An opinion supported by 5% of the population deserves 5% influence, not zero.

You need a proportional system like the greek system, which has a 300 seat house, 250 of which are elected and the other 50 are awarded to the leading party, in a hope to avoid to coalitions (even though the US system acts like a coalition anyway)

In this system, a party needs at least 3% to get a seat in parliament. Need 151 for a majority. To decide, the number of seats for each party, they divide the 250 by the total percentage of votes for each party. I wish, a system like this existed in Britain.

As you can see 7 parties got seats

Official parties

    New Democracy (ND) 129

    Syriza Unionist Social Front (SYRIZA) 71

    Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) 33

    Independent Greeks (ANEL) 20

    Golden Dawn (this is the nazi pary of greece!) (XA) 18                   

    Democratic Left (DIMAR)   17

Communist Party of Greece (KKE) 14

Why on earth would you want to vote for a libertarian party? History proved time and again that libertarianism simply doesn't work; do you Americans just not know about the 18th and 19th centuries?

What your suggesting doesn't work!

The way it is supposed to work is that the candidate elected is supposed to represent the views of the entire constituency as best as possible. Not just that of those who elected him/her.

What you're proposing doesn't work when you have a single seat up for consideration. What you're proposing would require all the seats are redistributed based on the percentages of votes, and that is just simply utter chaos!

The House of Representatives in most states and on the Federal level barely works as it is because of the two year terms of congress members. Most members of congress actually work a year, then campaign another year for re-election. If they're lucky, they get to repeat the cycle. One year of campaigning is bad enough of an interruption in government, what you're prosing would throw the government into utter chaos.

I'm sorry, but if your ideas or beliefs aren't good enough to convince at least 51% of the people in a constituency to vote for you, then you don't get to represent a portion of your constituency. It's really easy for one nutjub to convince a whole load of people that what they believe is the best way to do things. It doesn't make them right, it doesn't mean we should give them representation.

I would love to understand, how you think it would even remotely be possible to have representation based on a percentage of voters when there is only one seat to vote for. It's impossible. And implying that we should create seats or worse completely re-align the entire state or country based on a small percentage of representation is just asinine.

And thus my point is proved!  Such a system of government absolutely, positively, without any question of doubt does not work!  Talk about a country that is so fucked up right now politically as well as financially, and you have one solid bit of evidence as to why.  Rule by committee doesn't work.  Anyone who has worked in the corporate world at a business level (not a your local McDonald's franchise or Seven Eleven) can speak of the woe that is "rule by committee".  When everyone has a voice and no one can agree enough to make a reasonably intelligent decision, so no one does anything or they do the wrong thing for all the wrong reasons. 

There is nothing like being in a committee, needing consensus to move forward and having one idiot in a corner spouting off random bullshit that has no relevance to the actual issue but demanding it be acknowledged and acted upon in order for consensus.  And that is exactly what you'd have in a such a system of government.