Proportional representation systems do give small parties disproportionate power, but the US system does that with States anyway. (Australia has a proportional

Proportional representation systems do give small parties disproportionate power, but the US system does that with States anyway. (Australia has a proportional system in the senate which favors small parties in small states.) But Australia tempers this with preferential voting in the house which is simply better than the US electoral system (because small parties can still sway the outcome without actually getting members into parliament -- e.g. the greens can say they prefer X over Y and then direct their votes to X or Y, but if they actually get a big vote they can still win). New Zealand has a really nice system which is a little proportional but not too proportional and wastes very few votes without turning some tiny nutcase party into the tie breaker.