Preferential voting is a far superior system.

For those unfamiliar, here's an example:

If you like a minor party, say, the Green party, hate another minor party, say, Libertarian, more than you hate the Republicans and would settle for Democrats if you had to, then your vote would look like:

1. Green
2. Democrat
3. Republican
4. Libertarian

And if your (1) Green candidate didn't have enough votes to win outright, and no-one else did either, then your vote would go to the (2) democrat, who has all the (1) democrat and (2) democrat votes added together. If the democrat didn't have enough votes to win, then it would go to the Republican.

This is simplified, but should be enough to give the idea of how your vote always matters, and allows a better variety of ideas to flourish.

ALSO: post-election, say the democrats won, but only did because they got a lot of second round preferential votes from the Greens voters, that would help convince them that if they want to stay in power, they need to adopt more Green policies.

If parties get elected with no help and just because the other option is orange meltdown, it does little to encourage improvement. All they have to be is better than the other side (who lies all the time anyway, making "better" appear more subjective than objective).

How to help fix voting in the USA:

• Preferential voting
• Nonpartisan government body to create voting districts (remove Gerrymandering completely)
• Fix the money: Caps on political donations. Full transparencies on all political donations and spending. Corporations aren't people.
• Standardised ballots
• Disband the electoral college
• Change the size of the house/senate

Even some of the best countries' voting methods are being constantly tweaked and improved. Nothing is perfect, but it's an embarrassment how far behind the USA is.