Representative Democracy?
A Brief History of Representation
After the fall of Athens and the end of the Roman Republic, monarchy became the dominant form of government in Europe. Over time various groups sought representation and a voice in civic affairs and various representative bodies were formed in various places at various times. The common pattern was for the effort to gain representation and a voice in government began with the nobility and eventually spread to the common people.
Within the monarchies that were in place in Europe at the dawn of the Age of Reason (the Enlightenment) the pressure to move toward democracy initially came in the form of agitation for representation. That pressure originally came from the nobility. Over time, as “middle classes” consisting of merchants and tradespeople emerged, they too wanted to be represented to be sure their concerns were taken into consideration and addressed. Eventually the working classes also began to agitate for representation.
The term “republic” (or “republican form of government”) was initially defined as a system with some scheme of representation and an executive who was not a hereditary monarch.
The signing of the Magna Carta limited the power of the monarch in England. The Glorious Revolution and the English Bill of Rights transferred effective political power from the monarch to Parliament.
The most significant break from the tradition of representation under a monarchy came about as part of the American Revolution. The Declaration of Independence was based on the right of the people to “absolve themselves from allegiance” to a monarch and establish a democracy, where the “just powers” of the government were derived through the “consent of the governed.”
In the Spring of 1776, a few months before the Declaration of Independence was adopted, drafted, and signed by members of the Continental Congress, John Adams shared a description of the ideal “Representative Assembly”:
Representation evolved into "democracy".
A government is only a representative democracy if it is a true democracy. That has rarely been the case. If we want to make the term "representative democracy" something more than an oxymoron, we need to make systems of representation truly democratic.
Perfecting Representative Democracy
Adams’ description of the ideal Representative Assembly remains as relevant today as it was at the time he wrote.
Determining how another person thinks, feels, and reasons can be difficult, if not impossible. James Madison, in remarks he made at the Federal Convention of 1787, properly focused on the “act” of voting in making the important point that there should be a strong correlation between votes taken in a representative assembly and the results that would have been obtained if the people had voted directly:
Taken together, the ideals of Adams and Madison, fully realized, would transform legislative bodies into truly democratic institutions, worthy of the descriptor “Representative Assemblies” and make a government with a system of representation a true (perhaps even perfect) “representative democracy”.
Our elections are "unfair, partial, and corrupt."
Money plays a dominant role in our elections. Candidates backed by corporate interests and tax-averse billionaires have a significant and unfair advantage over candidates who rely on the support of ordinary citizens. Candidates who accept outsized contributions from corporate interests and billionaires are routinely corrupted in the process - they serve private interests instead of the common interest. The need to continuously raise enormous amounts of money has corrupted most members of Congress, who can most accurately be described as representing corporate interests, not the people of their state or district. The fact that we have "plurality winners" makes our elections "partial". Ranked Choice Voting would ensure that winning candidates have the support of a majority of the voters. Politicians who serve corporate interests have consistently refused to implement Ranked Choice Voting.
Experience has shown and research has confirmed that countries with “winner-take-all” elections, plurality winners and single-member districts for legislative bodies tend to have two dominant political parties (a "duopoly"). Countries with some form of proportional representation nearly always had more than two viable political parties. While there have been a few exceptions to this pattern, unfortunately the United States has not been one of the exceptions. Many of the flaws within our electoral system are related to the fact that we have a duopoly.
Another primary flaw in our electoral and political systems is the fact that geographic areas are represented, not people. Only voters who are in the majority within a state, congressional district, or legislative district have representation. Duopolies not only limit the choices for voters, but are susceptible to gerrymandering, which further limits the choices of voters.
The geographic basis for representation makes gerrymandering possible and computers have made gerrymandering brutally effective. Roughly 90% of congressional districts have been made "safe" for one or the other of the two major parties. And the deep and bitter divisions between the two major parties mean that Democrats living in a state or district with a Republican senator or representative are not truly represented, and vice versa. More than 40% of voters do not identify with either major party are not represented.
If we want to make Adams' and Madison's vision of the ideal Representative Assembly a reality and make America a Perfect Democracy, we need to adopt some form of Proportional Representation.
Proportional Representation
At the time Adams offered his description of the ideal representative assembly, and as the term was used by delegates to the Federal Convention of 1787, the term "proportional representation" meant that the number of seats each state had in a legislative body was based on the population of each state, with larger states having more seats. Adams’ use of the term “equal interests among the people should have equal interest in it” makes his description of the ideal Representative Assembly likely the earliest description of “proportional representation” as the term is used today.
Beginning in the early to mid-19th century, reformers (presumably inspired by Adams and Madison) proposed various forms of proportional representation to make legislative bodies more democratic. Some forms of proportional representation come closer than others to achieving that objective.
The power elite and the politicians who serve their interests have always opposed any form of proportional representation because governments with proportional representation are more democratic, shifting power away from the power elite and giving more power to the people. It should come as no surprise, then, that Party List systems - which leave the leadership of major political parties in a dominant role have been the most widely adopted.
In the closing years of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century, the Populist and Progressive movements in Europe and America grew large enough to pressure the power elite and the politicians who serve their interests to adopt pro-democracy reforms, including the adoption of various forms of proportional representation in European nations. The Populist and Progressive parties in America won some important victories for democracy, as well, but the power elite in America and political party leaders in America managed to fend off the adoption of any form of proportional representation and keep our deeply flawed electoral system in place. We have paid the price for their success. The primary reason most of the countries that are considered more democratic than the United States score higher than us in the Democracy Index and in the Freedom in the World Report is that they elect members of their representative assemblies using various forms of proportional representation. (They also make more extensive use of referendums and the initiative.)
Nearly a hundred countries around the world have some form of proportional representation. Most of them use the “Party List” form of proportional representation. A few of them use a “Mixed Member Proportional” system. Implementing ranked choice voting combined with multiple-member districts has long been considered the form of proportional representation that would be most appealing to American voters, but that form of ranked choice voting has yet to be implemented in any of the fifty states or in Congress. (Two states and over fifty cities have adopted ranked choice voting, but few, if any, of them incorporate multiple-member districts or at-large elections.)
In their book Proportional Representation (1926), Clarence Gilbert Hoag and George Hervey Hallett stated that “In the study of popular government too little attention has been paid to the fundamental question of how legislative bodies should be elected.” They then went on, however, to provide a detailed critique of various systems of proportional representation, proposed by a few political philosophers, political scientists, and politicians in the 19th century:
The most common form of proportional representation is the Party List System (or Ordered Party List System). There are two types of party list systems, commonly known as a “Closed List” system, and an “Open List” system.
Party List Systems (also known as Ordered Party List systems):
Closed Party List
In a Closed Party List System, political parties put together an ordered list of their candidates. Each voters cast a single vote for the political party of their choice. And political parties are awarded a percentage of the seats in a legislative body equal to the percentage of the vote each party received. The seats won be each party are filled from the party’s ordered list.
Open Party List
In an Open Party List System, voters cast a single vote for the candidate of their choice. The candidates from each party are placed on an “ordered list” based on the number of votes each candidate received. And political parties are awarded a percentage of the seats in a legislative body equal to the percentage of the vote each party’s candidates received (collectively).
Mixed-Member Proportional
A Mixed-Member Proportional system combines a closed party list system and a winner-take-all system, most commonly with half or more of the seats awarded to plurality winners in single member districts and the remaining seats awarded to political parties to bring the total number of seats held by each political party in line with each party’s percentage of the vote.
Proportional Ranked Choice Voting
Ranked Choice Voting (which is commonly referred to as a Single Transferrable Vote system (or Instant Run-Off Voting) outside of the United States can be used in elections for a single office or as a method of constituting legislative bodies. It is only a system of proportional representation when combined with multiple-member districts or at-large elections for electing members of a Representative Assembly. There are also similar systems known as the Alternative Vote, Majority Voting system, Double Ballot, Top Two or Top Four Run-Off.
In all these systems, voters are allowed to cast votes for multiple candidates ranking them in order of preference. The tabulation method for Ranked Choice Voting for offices where there can only be a single winner is fairly simple. The tabulation methods proposed for Proportional Ranked Choice Voting are all fairly complicated, involving mathematical equations designed to ensure proportional representation for voters, while maintaining the tradition of each member of a legislature having a single, equal vote.
Personal Representation through a system of Proxies
In 1867, Simon Sterne, at the request of the Personal Representation Society, prepared a report proposing a system of Personal Representation whereby votes would be treated as proxies with a set number of votes being required for selection to a Representative Assembly.
Voters would be able to select any of the candidates who had filed the necessary paperwork indicating a willingness to serve as authorized representatives, as their representative, regardless of where the candidate and the voter resided.
There was an element of Single Transferable Voting retained, as citizens who cast a vote for a candidate who was not elected, could, within a week of the election, transfer their vote to one of the winning candidates.
This system was referred to as Personal Representation because people, not geographic districts or states, would be represented.
Ranking the Systems of Proportional Representation
Some form of proportional representation, as the term is now used, is necessary to ensure that “equal interests among the people” are equally represented in a Representative Assembly. For a Representative Assembly to be “an exact portrait of the people at large”, the correlation Madison sought must be very nearly perfect.
Implementing any form of proportional representation would be a significant improvement over our present system and bring us much closer to fully realizing Adams’ and Madison's vision of the ideal “Representative Assembly”. The best alternative, however, is Personal Representation through a system of Proxies. implementing systems of Personal Representation through Proxies would instantly transform Congress and state legislatures into truly democratic institutions that would fully realize the vision of Adams and Madison regarding representative assemblies .
The material on this website is adapted from a soon to be published book: Government by the People: Perfecting Democracy in the 21st Century by Winston Apple.
Content is Copyright 2026 Gary Winston Apple, unless otherwise noted.
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