Take Back the Political Map

Rewriting the rules of our broken electoral process will require more than rallies and hashtags according to Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic

- KRIST NOVOSELIC

Every election season, we’re urged to participate by voting. This works when candidates pull people in, but it’s less than inspiring when people vote out of the fear that someone they don’t like will be elected. We’ve all heard variations of the line “Vote because it’s your duty,” and while I agree, the real problem is the sucky choices we get on the ballot. The good news is that things don’t have to be this way—at least not when it comes to Congress. We can pass election laws, without changing our Constitution, in a way that truly engages voters.

There’s an uneasy silence when it comes to races for the House. I find that most people don’t even know who represents them in the Capitol. If we stood in front of a supermarket with a picture of Justin Bieber and a picture of the local congressperson, I bet 19 out of 20 people wouldn’t recognize the latter. This is not our fault. It’s the result of the wall the House has built around itself.