I LIKE HAVING A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MY OWN DISTRICT. WON'T I LOSE OUT WITHOUT IT?
A representative from your own district is nice, but with "winner take all" there's a good chance you didn't vote for that representative. In the 1994 Congressional elections, only 21% of eligible voters helped elect someone. Local elections are e ven worse. People living right next door to one another can have completely opposite viewpoints, yet with a "winner take all" voting system, only one of these voters will receive representation -- the one that voted for the winner.
Under preference voting, more voters will see their favorite candidates get elected. Typically 86% of voters will help elect someone. That will increase voter enthusiasm and turnout.
COULD PR HELP IN VOTING RIGHTS CASES?
Absolutely. With PR, you actually need less votes to gain a seat than in the winner take all system, and you can gather these votes from a larger area. This makes it easier for racial or political minority perspectives to win seats, WITHOUT having to gerrymander districts.
In June 1995 and again in 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racially gerrymandered districts are unconstitutional. Voting rights experts like Lani Guinier, Ed Still and Rob Richie have proposed various forms of PR as a race-neutral method to give racial as well as political minorities and women a fair chance to elect representatives in competitive elections.
DOES PR AFFECT THE ELECTION 0F WOMEN?
Yes, very much so. Research has shown that systems of proportional representation result in greater numbers of elected women, and that greater numbers of women are elected in multi-seat rather than single-seat districts. Women currently make up only 11% of the U.S. House of Representatives and 8% of the U.S. Senate. In state and local legislatures, women average only one out of five legislators. According to United Nation reports, the United States ranks 24th of 54 western democracies in terms of women's representation in national legislatures. In fact, scholars have demonstrated that the underrepresentation of blacks is largely an underrepresentation of black women. African American women have only about one fourth the representation of black men.
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