U.S. government should take cues from USAC
senate
As a longtime campaigner for electoral reform in New Zealand, I
am heartened to see the same desire for more democratic electoral
practices emerging in the United States. We won our campaign to
have proportional representation introduced for national elections
in 1993, and a few years later the Hare system of voting discussed
in “Neesby’s proposal for USAC senate continues in new
academic year” (Sept. 25, News) was made an option for local
body elections here. I have long been amazed that Americans
continue to tolerate an electoral environment at the federal level
that sees 98 percent of incumbents in the House of Representatives
returned every two years, thanks to gerrymandering of district
boundaries at the state level and the winner-take-all voting system
that ignores the votes of anyone not backing the beneficiary of the
perverted boundaries. Initiatives like the senate system being
advanced by Brian Neesby in the Undergraduate Students Association
Council will hopefully pave the way for the eventual restoration of
the United States to the status of a functional democracy in which
representatives are once again actually held accountable. Such
accountability is clearly not being exercised at present, when the
members of the House of Representatives office holders appear
virtually incapable of not being re-elected. People interested in
voting and democracy in the United States can refer to
www.fairvote.org.
Steve Withers Electoral Reform Coalition New
Zealand