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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