The same logic holds true for women. The United States continues to lag far behind many other Western democracies, with the percentage of women elected to the U.S. House of Representatives hovering around 13 percent. The adoption of PR in the U.S. would be one of the most effective ways to increase the number of women in elected office. Implementing PR in the United States In the U.S., much of the grassroots political activity promoting PR has taken place on the local level. Both efforts were narrowly defeated, with PR garnering the support of almost 45 percent of the voters in both cases.
Proportional representation is also feasible for Congressional elections.
The Center for Voting and Democracy in Washington, D.C., has developed plans for Georgia and North Carolina that demonstrate how easy it would be to create multi- member PR districts for U.S. House elections. Such plans would not require a constitutional amendment. All that would be needed is to repeal a 1967 federal law requiring single-member district elections for the House, and several bills have been introduced in Congress that would do just that. In fact, with the approval of the Department of Justice under the Voting Rights Act, some states are already using PR in local elections, allowing minorities to elect their fair share of representatives. The debate over proportional representation is just beginning in this country, but it is an idea whose time has come.