> Only the presidential elections need to be single-winner. It sounds to me like you're thinking of the US as more monolithic than it is. If we only had the fe

> Only the presidential elections need to be single-winner. It sounds to me like you're thinking of the US as more monolithic than it is. If we only had the federal government, sure, only the president would really need to be single-winner. But pooling congressional seats logistically cannot happen, because congress is not parliament. The entire point is that senators represent their states, and House members represent their districts. Pooling them would be like pooling the EU Council and having all Europeans vote together on national ministers. Remember that states are semi-autonomous, with their own governments following their own laws according to their own constitutions. Obviously our federal government is more powerful and rather more cohesive than the EU, but only up to a point. (Note: I'm not saying this is a good or sensible system. In many ways, I would love for our resources and our voices to be pooled. The autonomy of individual states is a huge part of why the right wing is disproportionately represented at the federal level. And the fact that only states—not territories—get representation is a travesty.) You're absolutely right, though, that the single-winner aspect is why we have essentially always had a two-party system (though _which_ two parties has changed several times over the years). The way I once heard someone put it is that in parliamentary democracy, people vote for representation and their MPs form coalitions, while in the American system, the people themselves have to be the ones to form coalitions, in the form of the two dominant parties.