proportional representation

A detailed Summary of proportional representation


Americans continue to be disillusioned and apathetic toward politics. Cynicism about candidates and parties is common and voter turnout is low. There has been some talk for changing the election system in this country, campaign finance reform, and term limits are two of the ideas put forward. However, what some feel should we be doing is replace our present, winner-take-all election system with proportional representation (PR) elections.

Leaders of most alternative parties, including the Libertarians, the Greens, and the New Party, are pushing for the change to PR. Even a Harvard Law professor, Lani Guinier* has concluded that proportional representation would be the best way to give minority voters fair representation.

Proportional representation comes in many varieties, but they all share


two basic characteristics. First, they use multi-member districts. Instead of electing one member of the legislature in each small district, PR uses much larger districts that elect several members at once, five or ten, for example. Second, which candidates win the seats in these multi-member districts is determined by the proportion of votes each party receives. Eliminating the problem of one winner of the district from misrepresenting the section of the population that did not vote for them. Those people would have their own representation.

Proportional representation would also eliminate the problem of gerrymandering, a problem of the single-member per district system. District lines are currently drawn to create district majorities that favor certain parties or incumbents, this seem to be

Some common words found in the essay are:
Lani Guinier*, African American, Italy Israel, , proportional representation, Greens Party, district lines, Harvard Law, share seats pr, fair share seats, representation proportional representation, share seats, pr system, fair share, seats pr, multi-member districts, election system, fair representation, representation proportional,

Approximate Word count = 539
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Politics

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