After months of legislative gridlock and political acrobatics, Missouri's congressional redistricting plan — widely considered a partisan gerrymander — now awaits review from a trial judge. This tumultuous political battle is the latest evidence of the failure of winner-take-all, single-member district elections.

Winner-take-all inherently distorts representation, leaves most voters without a chance to cast a meaningful vote and creates opportunities for legislators to gerrymander outcomes. Although other reforms like independent redistricting make sense, they won't be enough if we keep winner-take-all in place.

There's a better way, one grounded in our electoral traditions: fair voting, which is an American form of proportional representation in elections taking place in larger 'super-districts." It puts voters in charge of their representation in every election, rather than leaving it to partisan mapmakers once a decade.

The root of the current controversy is the fact that the legislature's congressional redistricting plan poorly reflects the state's close partisan division (Missouri was the closest battleground in the 2008 presidential election). Based on our projections, however, the current plan would result in six Republican seats and just two Democratic seats, without any inherently competitive districts.

To make such partisan redistricting impossible, Missouri should establish an independent redistricting process and use a fair voting system, where nearly all voters elect a preferred representative. Forms of fair voting are used in most well-established democracies around the world and have a long history in American cities as an alternative to winner-take-all rules.

Two candidate-based forms of fair voting have been upheld by our courts, fit well with American traditions and are used in some local elections. In choice voting, voters rank the candidates they prefer in order of choice. When used in major cities such as New York and Cincinnati in the mid-1900s, it helped to break the power of urban political machines and open representation to new voices.

Cumulative voting awards each voter the same number of votes as seats and allows voters to distribute more than one vote to a candidate. Used from 1870 to 1980 to elect members of the Illinois House of Representatives in three-seat districts, cumulative voting almost always elected at least one legislator of each major party in every district, promoting both more balanced representation and less polarized governance.

These fair voting plans allow like-minded voters to pool their votes in multi-seat super-districts to elect representatives in numbers that reflect their voting strength. Winning in a three-seat district would take earning just over 25 percent of the vote. Winning more than 50 percent of the vote would earn two seats. In larger districts, the percentage of the vote necessary to win declines: winning a seat in a five-seat super district would take about 17 percent of the vote.

We have created an example of a fair voting proposal for Missouri congressional elections by combining districts from the legislature's plan. Missouri would have two super-districts, and each super-district would have the same number of people per seat: one super-district with five seats and one smaller super-district with three seats.

From a partisan perspective, supporters of both major parties would have the power to help elect at least one candidate in each super-district. Both parties would be favored to earn at least two seats in Super-District 1 and one seat apiece in Super-District 2. Additionally, each super-district creates a tossup seat that would swing to the party with a stronger candidate or to the party with national momentum.

Fair voting is not only fair to Democrats and Republicans but to voters of all political opinions. Minor parties and independents would gain a greater chance to hold the major parties accountable and win seats. Racial minorities would gain more power to elect preferred candidates, and women candidates would have more chances to increase their representation.

For Missouri to establish a fair voting plan, Congress must repeal a 1967 law that mandates one-seat districts. For state legislative elections, however, Missouri can adopt fair voting now. With our government founded on upholding the consent of the governed, it's time to reject winner-take-all and actually put voters in charge.

Rob Richie is executive director of FairVote, a national, nonpartisan organization based in Maryland. Lindsey Needham is a FairVote Democracy Fellow. A fuller fair voting plan for Missouri is available at www.fairvote.org/no-more-gerrymanders-missouri.