The root cause of our political problems is none of the things people mentioned in this Quora article about causes, so the solution is missing from this one about solutions. The real problem is that our system was never designed to deliver the results we desire in America today:  Congress being responsive and accountable to an informed and involved electorate.

Our founders designed our system in the 1770’s and came up with a first-draft, our Constitution, but it was at a time when there was no real experience with working democracies. And yes, America made small amendments over the past 25 decades, but our political processes were not designed for our modern world of huge populations, highly connected and interdependent, dominated by large parties, industrial and media corporations and other wealthy interests.

The real problem is that the shape of our political system delivers our current state of affairs. We simply do not have a system that delivers power to the people nor empowers people to responsibly wield that power.

A visionary alternative would encompass:

1) A communication system whereby we, the people, can express what we each want and see what we collectively want. This is advisory voting on issues that matter. It must be done in a way that supports and rewards voters being informed. It would allow us all to contribute to the design of our future, directly informing and guiding our representatives.

2) An accountability system whereby we determine on which issues we want our representatives to be accountable, and they can report to us. They’ll also be able to lead us and see how their guidance effects our votes– we’ll be able to change our vote at any time.

3) An inexpensive political communication system so effective campaigns can be inexpensive. This means allowing challengers to report to us as well.

To solve our root political problem, we just need to create this new foundation. This will allow issue-centric, inexpensive campaigns leading our candidates to compete to do what we want without being dependent on wealthy special interests. And knowing what we want collectively, Congress can address it with confidence.

There are many more details to add to this foundation, such as crowdsourcing issues and questions, contributing links to issue-centered articles and rating them, trust networks, ties into forums and Quora and other political sites, and much more, all in a non-partisan manner, secure and assuring privacy.

This has begun at PeopleCount.org, a working prototype of voting on issues. Try it out! Imagine if this were a popular source of information of candidates and representatives.

All the other solutions on that page take political action, but it’s precisely political action that is so difficult because we can’t communicate effectively on issues. Those who can, vested interests, retain formidable power. Americans are raising hundreds of millions of dollars to try to limit money in politics, in an environment where political communication is expensive. Many are trying to reform our voting method, yet our system continues to give power to the major parties that benefit by it.

Instead of all this swimming-upstream and fighting with vested interests, simply vote on issues on PeopleCount.org. Send your friends to the site, and donate. As more people vote, challengers will use the system to state their commitments on issues, and in response, incumbents as well. As more people donate, we’ll be able to roll out new capabilities and realize the vision.