Dick, to answer your question, "because my two senators have so much seniority they often literally run unopposed."

When there are two candidates, they are both gladhanding vacantheads bought and paid for by business interests, who stand for nothing but their own career advancement. When there are 3, the alternative candidate generally gets 0.something of the vote.   And often a third party is kept off the ballot by hairy registration procedures.

Voting doesn't work anymore because the game is rigged by the two parties who make the rules.

Don, if you are still looking for ideas on how to fix the system, here ya go. It will have to address the major root of the problem, so change will have to come from dismantling a lot of the rules Congress has decided to operate under.

Specifically, a lot of the corruption goes back to the committee system, where one guy can pass or block legislation. This is the whole basis for the gamesmanship, dealmaking, and lobbying that goes on, and causes a truckload of decisions not in the public interest. Never mind the crazy length of the bills, the 90,000 staffers, etc.

If there is one thing the Constitution was clear about it, it was that these reps are supposed to get one vote each, not that the party leader would get to decide what lived and died.   This is legal leg to stand on. If an aggrieved class could show harm done by this committee meat-grinder which creates our budgets and laws, they could sue, and eventually the Supreme Court could take a hard look at the rules congress gives itself each session, and disallow some of them. Of course, that's if the Supreme isn't too far gone, too packed with corporate shills by now...