Committee to Elect Wes Upchurch

It seems to me that a state which awards all of it's electoral votes to a candidate which might only have a marginal plurality of votes in the state doesn't make sense. It effectively silences any minority viewpoint in the state. That is why I stand against the current system and instead support measures that would allow for proportional representation in Missouri.

What is a proportional vote system?

In a presidential election, under a voting system of proportional representation, electors would be selected in proportion to the percentage of votes cast for their candidate or party instead of just being selected to represent only the plurality vote. As an example, consider the 2000 Presidential Election, in between George Bush and Al Gore as the major primary contenders, with Ralph Nader, on the Green party ticket taking a small but noteworthy minority. In California, the approximate proportion of votes for these tickets was 41.65 percent Bush, 53.45 percent Gore, and 3.82 percent Nader. Under the current system, all 54 electoral votes were for Gore. Under a simple proportional system, the votes might be distributed as 23 Bush, 29 Gore, and 2 Nader. In that same election, right here in Missouri Bush recieved all 11 electoral votes, even though he recieved only 50.42% of the vote. Sincer there were 2,359,892 votes cast in Missouri that year, it would have taken about 214,536 votes to get each electoral, under a proportional voting system. In this case Bush would have recieved 6 electoral votes and Gore would have recieved 5.

This same kind of system could be used in other ways such as choosing the leglistlative representatives, school board officials, county officials, and more: resulting in a more accurate representation of the people that elected them.

What is wrong with the current system?

Under the current "winner-takes-all" system of choosing electors that we have here in Missouri, we are opperating under a system that awards seats to the highest vote getters without ensuring fair representation for minority groups. What this means is that a slim majority of voters recieves 100% of the electoral votes, leaving everyone else effectively without fair representation. Problems this leads to include:

• Severe under-representation of the voices and opinions of women, communities of color, third parties, young people, and even major party supporters who happen to live in areas where another party dominates.
• Decreased voter turnout. With limited choice, and little chance of influencing the outcome of an election under winner-take-all rules, many people will unsurprisingly choose not to participate.
• Campaings that try to devide instead of unite the people. Campaigns often fail to address challenging issues and ignore entire constituencies. Under our current system there is no real incentive to reach out to opponents or build cross-party support, this means negative campaigning is often a sensible and effective strategy.

Why should we support proportional representation?

Through proportional representation electoral system, candidates would recieve electoral votes in better proportion to their share of the population, in presidential elections and if used in legislative elections like minded groups would recieve more accurate and better representation in congress. A system of awarding our electoral votes proportionally in Missouri would effectively end our granting of 100% of our voting power to a 50.1% majority of voters. Proportional representation would give minorities a fair share of representation. It would also encourage candidates to find solutions that appeal to all of those the represent, not just half of them. This means more working together as a state united.

Where can I find more information about proportional representation systems?

Visit FairVote at www.fairvote.org.

---

Add, Bookmark, and Share this page.

Recommend this article...

Comments

Add New Search

Write comment
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
Website:
Title:
UBBCode:	-color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.23

3.23 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."