Sam Blankenship is in the process of applying to law school.

STRONGSVILLE -- It's not a stretch to say that, by all appearances, the partisan divide in America is only widening. Both sides, right and left, are radicalizing at what appears to be an ever-accelerating pace. With this has come a harshening of the rhetoric and discourse from American leaders and from American citizens.

Most of the proposed solutions to this paralyzing problem revolve around changing people. "They need to be more informed!" some cry, while others lament that the other side "doesn't understand us."

I don't think changing individuals, or even groups, will do much good at all.

Rather, it's time we started to look at changing the system that got us here in the first place.

Much of our system relies on "first past the post" elections. A candidate who receives 50 percent of the vote, then at least one more vote, wins and is expected to represent, at least in theory, everyone who voted in that particular election.

It's a system that pretty much demands the existence of only two parties; any more, and it wouldn't really work.

With the two-party system comes, by necessity, radicalization. Everything's in black and white; it's "us versus them" in its purest form.

Over time, the parties grow to hate one another, constant and bitter rivals that they are. It gets us to the place we now find ourselves: bitter divide; unflinching dislike and hatred; and a government that has ground to a halt.

The solution lies in revamping our election system and embracing the idea of proportional representation. In such a system, legislative districts would either be done away with entirely or consolidated into just a few per state. These larger congressional district's representatives would be decided by the proportion of the vote their party received.

If 60 percent voted Republican and 40 Democrat in in a part of Ohio allotted 10 congressional representatives, for example, there would be six representatives from the Republican Party and four from the Democrats.

In effect, every vote would matter, not just the votes for the party that gets more than 50 percent.

The benefits to such a system are numerous. Most importantly for our current situation, a proportional representation system allows for, and almost demands, more than two parties.

Suddenly, a fringe or single-issue party that can manage to get just a small percentage of the votes can have a seat in Congress. You no longer have to choose the lesser of two evils if you don't identify with the Democrats or the Republicans. Is the environment all you care about? Vote the Green Party. Afraid of government overreach? The Libertarians are for you. Your vote isn't just a protest vote in this system; it could actually result in the ideals to which you ascribe having an impact on our national government.

With many parties comes a great potential for improving our discourse. It's a lot harder to maintain the level of ire we currently see when there is more than one target.

Furthermore, compromise would be necessary. Likely, no party would have a majority in the proportional representation system. Thus parties would have to form coalitions, working together with other parties with diverse opinions to be able to get anything done at all. As it stands, whoever has even a single representative advantage in the U.S. House of Representatives has access to complete control. The minority party can, and does, only become embittered and further radicalized in such a system.

Naturally, proportional representation is not without its flaws. There is potential for far more radical parties to take the national stage, albeit in small numbers, and there would be less direct representation of geographic areas. However, the benefits that changing to this system could provide our country, and the potential it carries for healing our poisoned and destructive national discourse and politics, far outweigh these disadvantages. At the very least, making this change merits serious consideration.

For now, that's probably all that we can do for it: Think about it.

Many reading this are probably thinking, "Well it sounds fine, but it'll never happen here." Almost right: It'll be wildly difficult to change our electoral system, but just barely not impossible.

The first step is to start a national conversation and get American citizens thinking about the possibilities. Our political environment has shown it is going to get worse, not better, on its own. Perhaps it's time to change the system that let it get so bad in the first place.

Sam Blankenship is a Law School Admission Test (LSAT) instructor and is in the process of applying to law school himself.

********

Have something to say about this topic? Use the comments to share your thoughts, and stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the Notification Settings (in blue).