There are many things wrong with our election process.  Redistricting is a major problem in Texas.  Districts should be based on counties not carved out portions of counties that favor the party in control. 

I'd rather elections just be based on party rather than the individual.  Most people party line vote in the USA so I don't see a problem with throwing out individual candidates (considering most don't even do research into them) and just having them vote on parties.  So instead of having petty debates on a candidate releasing their tax information or what they said a few years ago the elections would be based on how well the parties operate and the ideals of the party.  I suppose that would end independents but they really haven't done shit anyways. 

Mixed member proportional is bad. There would be minority governments every election and nothing would get done in their term.

I do wish there was actual choice such as Libertarian or whatever else (since Democrats and Republicans are the same thing and only an illusion of choice) but I don't think proportional representation is the way to do it. I don't know enough about election systems to propose a better system than that though.

I think the best way to get a 3rd [Libertarian] party involved would just simply be education. Educate the public on the benefits of libertarianism and how it would benefit literally EVERYONE. Get people on board with it since right now they seem scared. I honestly think Romney was right in his recent comments that there are some people who will vote Obama no matter what because they are scared to lose their welfare or other benefits...and we need to get people out of that mindset and into the mindset that they would be better off under Libertarianism. High taxes and government overspending doesn't work, overregulation does harm not good, private is better and more cost effective than public...these are the things people need to learn.

There is a joke that says that a Camel is a Horse designed by a committee. I totally agree with your opinion, a fragmented parliament most of the times provide instability.

Well, I am to the point where I would vote for about any party besides Democrats and Republicans.  Libertarians might have the balls to actually make some meaningful cuts.  You can cut as much as you want elsewhere but eventually you are going to have to look at the three main big ones that affect most of the budget (Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and Military).  Apparently, those programs are off hands for most politicians considering people would be upset.  Hell, I wouldn't even mind voting for a fascist party considering our politicians are basically owned by the corporations anyways.  Also, I don't think we ran up that much debt during the 18th and 19th centuries like we did in the past few decades.  Quite frankly I don't think anything can help push USA in the right direction now.  We are just waiting to fall off the cliff.

Sweden and all other Nordic countries (plus the UK, I'd say. And probably a few more) question the fuck out of it. Very few countries are as financially stable as the Nordic countries, so don't use Greece as some sort of prime example of how proportional representation works out; if all great parties are bad, it doesn't matter how the government looks.

The two wealthiest nations on the planet were England and France, and under libertarian regimes there was mass starvation and death in both the core nations of the UK and France, resulting in millions of deaths between the two. Not to mention the exploits by wealthy industrialists within their empires; particularly their exploits in Africa which resulted in the destruction of the entire continent; and nightmarish amounts of misery - 10 million deaths in the congo rubber industry alone.

If you don't want corporations running everything, then you don't want a libertarian government. All that will do is enable insurance portion of corporate conglomerate to control everything the government did; and they can buy up all the farms, and sell you what you need to survive for a much higher price - and you'll have to buy it; and when you can't, you have no choice but crime or death.

I think what you'd end up with is a system where nothing gets done because nobody can agree on anything. You might as well not have any representation at all if that's what you want.

We are a democratic republic for a very good reason. We believe each citizen should have a voice, but that a representative is needed to manage reason out of the chaos of all those voices.

People are unhappy today, not because of a two party system, but because they don't like either party. If their party suddenly gained votes and took control they'd be happy with even a single party system. All those third parties aren't necessarily better anyway. Do we really want to give the communist party even a 5% influence? I don't.

The republican and democratic parties are flawed, but not as much as people complain so much about. It's the actual representatives that most people don't like and they could easily be voted out and replaced if people would just hold them accountable. Both parties have changed so much over the years that they don't even resemble themselves with each new generation. In 30 years I expect both to be arguing about completely different topics than what is in the news today.

My point is, if you don't like the current two parties, than vote out the people you don't like. If you want to vote for a 3rd party do so, maybe it will grow and replace the democratic or republican party. But don't make the mistake of thinking that the masses can run government policy better than the few who represent them.

And even with a proportional government system you are able to tell poor party leaders to step down from from their position if you don't like what they do or say.

-Free and open airtime on radio, TV, and other forms of public broadcasting.
-Open debates which represent all parties, and are not run by the Republicrats.
-A independent, non-profit news organization with no money interests to any one party to cover elections.
-Free and open national ballot system for all parties.
-No public or private spending allowed, ensuring an equal playing field between rich and poor candidates.
-No electoral college.
-No congress, only public voting on national issues.

There is more, but these are off the top of my head.

I'm going to avoid the current system/proportional system debate and say what I think could get more third-party candidates elected: wealthy benefactors. Third-party candidates' problem is that they usually can't afford to make their names widespread. Since they're small-time, the news networks don't cover them, and they don't get invited to major debates. This further marginalizes them, perpetuating a vicious cycle.

If they had backers with big wads of cash, they could buy more advertisements to get their names and platforms out, and thus gain too much attention to be ignored. Of course, this money could also come from average joes, but the reason we're having this conversation is because not many people support them!