Debate: How could we fix a 2 party system

Our current political environment has issues.  A major one that creates many others is that we have just 2 parties and they are in some ways incentivized against working with each other since they are in a zero sum game, one gains seats the other loses them.  If we see this as an issue the question is how do we get around this, one way is to make it so there are more than 2 options.  In our current system though this is difficult, often times a third party running simply splits votes between the two most similar candidates and leaves a third person to win.  Because of this function many people are disincentives to vote for someone not from a major party.

               This comes from our structure, where each seat is independent and a plurality wins and the rest of the votes don’t go anywhere.  And in many cases in many districts on both sides the winner of the election is the winner of a particular primary and those in that district with different views are not heard.

               A way to change this would be through an amendment.

Amendment:

               There will be an additional set of Senators and Congressman equal to 30% of the otherwise assigned members of the Senate and House.

               These additional representatives will be floating members and assigned by party leadership.  The allocation of these members will be done with an equal proportions method, to bring each party as close to the total percentage of the voting as possible.  With representatives only going to parties with at least 5% of the total vote in that election.  Percentages will be redistributed to 100% after any parties that did not receive the 5% are excluded.

               For the House, each states votes will be averaged to the nearest whole percentage and weighted by their population from the prior census.

               For the Senate each states votes will be rounded to the nearest whole percentage and then all states will have their numbers averaged and Senators assigned from that.  Since at any given time only one third of the at large senate seats will be up for grabs, all the senate seats are considered together to assign the third that are up for re election that cycle to get as close as possible to the calculated percentage.

Any open position due to death, resignation or other means. will be filled by the party that filled that position.

In the case of any ties the party with the fewest total seats will get the seat.  If there is still a tie the seat will be decided by drawing lots from a hat.

What problems will this address?

               This will give the country a more than 2 party system which should foster more compromise by getting rid of the zero sum nature of our elections. Right now if one party gains the seat the other loses one, this is not a good way to foster comprimise

               This will eliminate at least some of the issues with Gerrymandering since any extra or discounted votes in one area will go somewhere.

Go live

               During the first election cycle for this process there will be the entire allotment of senators.  They will be split into three tiers as equal as possible.  The first tiers having the higher amount of senators.  During this election the first tiers (with 6 year terms) will be assigned first each seat going to the party whos current percentage of seats if farthest from there amount they should have.  After all the first tier and done the second tier (4 years) will be filled then the third tier (2 years)

EXs.

               In 2016 the Libertarian party received around 3% of the vote in the presidential election and similar the Green party in 2000.  That is also with people knowing full well that the candidate there would not win.  If we assume that more people would vote for these parties if there was a chance that they would send a representative to congress than I think its safe to think that these parties would meet a 5% threshold.  Just having these extra two parties in the fold would make it so that neither of the other two parties could singlehandedly impose their views.

               In any individual district it would be now possible to just vote for a party even if in that district there is no individual running.