A Better Way Than One Man, One Vote

T he upcoming Cambridge City Council elections make us question America's electoral politics, already dearly deserving scrutiny. Municipal elections in Cambridge operate on a system of proportional representation, which in its simplest conception dictates that representation in elected government should reflect not merely the majority will, but a portion of the vote in proportion to its size. Cambridge relies upon a particularly intricate system to achieve this end: candidates are ranked by voters and their preferences tallied in a number of successive counts. Those candidates who surpass a predetermined quota are elected, and the votes are redistributed appropriately for subsequent counts, until all nine city councilors have been determined.

Cambridge has used the system since 1941, with the proclaimed purpose of representing minorities within an elected body meant to serve not just the majority of voters. Indeed, the Cambridge system stands in striking contrast to the form of most state and national elections in the United States. Both are based on the perplexing notion that 51 percent of the vote deserves 100 percent of the representation. In this very manner we elect our Congress and our state legislatures. It is a winner-take-all system that awards disproportionate power to even the slightest majority.

Clearly, minorities and third-party candidates find it exceedingly difficult to gain representation in legislative bodies, because the donkeys or the elephants are able to marshal between 45 and 55 percent of the vote. Minority parties are often forced to abandon the fundamental principles of their constituencies merely to form a coalition with a majority party. This well-established party then grudgingly grants them nominal representation, just as the black vote is taken for granted by the Democratic Party.

The great preponderance of democratic nations in the world have rejected this distorted form of representation in favor of proportional representation. All but two European nations use this system, as do South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and a number of other emerging democracies. Within these systems, every group is represented in proportion to the number of votes it receives, and thus every vote counts.

One's vote truly becomes one's voice to be heard in the apportionment of representation. Nations that use proportional representation enjoy voter turnout rates high above those in the United States, which is currently mired in an undeniably alarming state of voter apathy. Voters in America are reluctant to vote for a third party because they fear theirs will be a wasted vote, and this may discourage them from voting altogether.

Only two-fifths of eligible voters cast a ballot in the 1994 federal elections. This apathy is apparent throughout all segments of the American electorate, but is particularly striking among minorities. In the presidential elections of 1992, 64.5 percent of white women and 62.6 percent of white men cast ballots, compared to 56.7 percent and 50.8 percent among blacks respectively, and only 30.9 percent and 26.8 percent respectively among Hispanics. Minorities do not vote because they feel they can achieve little and certainly will not gain political representation.

With proportional representation, every vote comes to have true meaning, instilling confidence in the effectiveness of democracy. This characteristic itself would encourage voters to go to the polls. In addition to increasing voter turnout, proportional representation addresses and remedies a number of deficiencies in our supposedly representative democracy.

First, it promotes equal representation of minorities and eliminates the gerrymandering and redrawing of single-seat districts, replacing these districts with one multi-member district that proportionally elects a number of candidates. This characteristic is paramount in light of the Supreme Court's ruling in Miller v. Johnson, which struck down race-conscious districting as unconstitutional. Proportional representation is a racially nonbiased means of accomplishing representative minority presence within our political institutions and can serve to convince minority voters of the purpose and value of their votes.

Furthermore, proportional representation has been proven to reduce gender inequalities within elected government. Today, women constitute only 11 percent of the House of Representatives and a mere eight percent of the Senate. Systems of proportional representation, however, have been proven to result in greater numbers of elected women. Indeed, this phenomenon has been substantiated in electoral systems around the world: Sweden has a legislature that is 41 percent female, Norway's is 39 percent and South Africa's is 25 percent, dwarfing America's humiliating figures.

Lastly, proportional representation diminishes the force of big money in elections. In American politics today, pressure groups have arisen to positions of dominant importance that allow them inordinate influence and push our democratic institutions far from our ideals. Proportional representation, however, would enable candidates to be elected with a truly representative portion of the votes, and helping them concentrate on their assured constituency rather than on high-priced swing votes and creating a far more democratic method of selecting our representatives within all facets of elected government.

And while education can prove effective in helping the public to understand the benefits of proportional representation, nothing can serve democracy more than a concrete demonstration of proportional representation's superiority over the deficient legacy that winner-take-all democracy has left our nation. I urge you to cast your ballot come Nov. 2. We, too, are members of the Cambridge community.

Patrick C. Toomey is a first-year in Mathews Hall.