Professor Douglas Amy’s book “Behind the Ballot
Box: A Citizens Guide to Election Systems had a great list
of criteria
California Local Leagues used to evaluate different
electoral systems in California’s state study of election
systems.
I am not familiar with ALL his work but
Professor Amy has been writing about the problems with
U.S. plurality elections for many years.
As an
alternative to plurality winner take all elections,
he argues for proportional representation.
After 20 years of LWV state and local
electoral reform studies, our LWVUS Voter
Representation and Election Systems
position supports alternatives to plurality
voting and supports proportional representation.
Perhaps it is what motivated Prof. Amy to
contact some local leagues rather than “self promotion”?
"we support
electoral systems that “implement alternatives to
plurality voting”
and
"The
League supports electoral systems that elect policy-making
bodies–-legislatures, councils, commissions, and
boards—that proportionally reflect the people they
represent.”
Paula Lee
LWV Sacramento, CA
916-704-0195 Cell & Text
P.S. I found this when I looked up his book Real Choices/New Voices:
There
is a growing realization that many of the problems
afflicting American elections can be traced to the
electoral system itself, in particular to our
winner-take-all approach to electing officials.
Douglas Amy demonstrates that switching to
proportional representation elections―the voting
system used in most other Western democracies, by
which officials are elected in large, multimember
districts according to the proportion of the vote
won by their parties―would enliven democratic
political debate, increase voter choice and voter
turnout, ensure fair representation for third
parties and minorities, eliminate wasted votes and
"spoilers," and ultimately produce policies that
better reflect the public will. Looking beyond new
voting machines and other quick fixes for our
electoral predicament, this new edition of Real
Choices/New Voices offers
a timely and imaginative way out of the frustrations
of our current system of choosing leaders.
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