Wisconsin lawmakers are looking at ways to possibly change how voters pick candidates for Congress and the U.S. Senate. The State Senate’s Committee on Elections on Tuesday held a hearing on Final Five voting for federal offices.

The problem is that the voters are losing. Solution-based legislation is losing. Good governance is losing. Democracy is losing. Who is winning? Special-interest groups that fund the extremes and count on the gridlock of status quo to paralyze responsible governance.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The push for ranked-choice voting in Wisconsin gained steam on Wednesday with the introduction of a bipartisan bill in the state Legislature, a move backed by a Republican congressman and a recently formed coalition of civic and business leaders.

The Wisconsin organization, founded by Milwaukee-area business leaders Katherine Gehl and Austin Ramirez, advocates ranked-choice voting for this state’s U.S. House and Senate elections.

On WHBY’s Fresh Take, Katherine Gehl described the central idea of her newly published book, Final Five Voting, and explained how targeting reforms at Congress can fix other problems too.

As members of different political parties, it’s easy to assume there are not very many issues that the two of us agree on in this era of deep political divides. Political rancor has poisoned our national dialogue even on issues that initially seem above politics.

With a pair of symbiotic electoral innovations, a national movement is attempting to blast an icebreaker through our frozen governments. And one group in Wisconsin, Democracy Found, is hoping to introduce these two ideas in the state legislature next year.

Sara Eskrich, Executive Director of Democracy Found, spoke to members of the Rotary Club of Madison. She has herself been in electoral politics, as a Madison alder, and she is concerned that policy decisions are often stymied by politics.

Election reforms that are designed to wrest control from the major parties and to fix political dysfunction are gaining support.