"The crudity and unfairness of the
present method of election. . . still goes on sending men to Parliament for whom only a
minority of their constituents have voted, leaving the majority quite unrepresented. As a
representative system, it is a sham, a delusion and a snare to the unthinking."
Kate Sheppard, who led women's suffrage movement
in New Zealand (the first nation to give women the
vote), Natl. Council of Women Address, 1902
"The loss of Lani Guinier as
Assistant Attorney General for civil rights is a grave one, both for President Clinton and
the country. The President's yanking of the nomination, caving in to shrill,
unsubstantiated attacks, was not only unfair, but some would say political cowardice. . .
.
"Although Ms. Guinier does not
advocate forcing cumulative voting plans upon local jurisdictions, she suggests that some
localities may prefer a race-neutral plan to a race-conscious plan. This idea is hardly
radical. During the Bush Administration, the Justice Department approved alternative
voting systems in at least 35 different jurisdictions."
William T. Coleman Jr. (Secretary of Transportation
under President Ford), June 4, 1993 NY Times
column supporting Lani Guinier's nomination
"Let there be no mistake: the
current at-large system is no longer acceptable. In Dallas County, 37% of the people, but
less than 14% of the judges, are African-American or Hispanic. . . The federal courts may
ultimately hold that the evidence presented in pending litigation is insufficient to
demonstrate that the system is illegal, but they cannot make it fair or right. . . .
"Some scholars believe that a better method of electing trial judges, particularly in
metropolitan areas, would be limited or cumulative at-large elections. . . While little
used in judicial elections, such procedures have long been used in both public and private
elections around the world."
Chief Justice Thomas Phillips, Supreme Court of
Texas; "State of the Judiciary" address
to Texas legislature, February 23, 1993
"I can think of no other way [than
cumulative voting] to create a reasonable opportunity for the Latino and Asian-American
communities to organize effectively to elect School Committee members from their
midst."
Former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, in May 1993 letter
to mayoral candidates shortly before resigning to
become U.S. ambassador to the Vatican
"The second track [in Angola policy]
is to recognize that winner-take-all elections seldom bring peace to conflict-torn
societies. Political talks must be organized with the goal of achieving effective,
multi-party power sharing to broaden the regime's base and decentralize power during a
transitional period of several years (as in South Africa)."
Chester Crocker, Assist. Sec. of State for African
Affairs, 1981-89; Oct. 10 column, Washington Post
"For us, the significant thing about
the victory was the fact that the voters were not fooled by the anti-MMP propaganda which
saturated television, radio and newspaper advertising in the last few weeks; the anti-MMP
group spent at least $1 million in the last week alone. The use of fear-raising images,
distortions and half-truths about MMP certainly led to a narrowing of the margin, but it
bodes well for the future of democracy that our voters had the maturity of judgment to see
through those tactics."
Colin Clark, National Chair of New Zealand
Electoral Reform Coalition, 12/93 letter to CV&D
"Comparative electoral systems is an
unusually well-researched part of politics, with quite clearcut results, but the U.S.
press tends to operate on knowledge that is outdated by 40 years, or rather on myths.
Electoral systems have an appreciate impact on politics; yet the U.S. public is woefully
uninformed, and, indeed, misinformed about them. City fathers regularly attempt to
reinvent the wheel, unaware of most of the options that might fit their stated
goals."
Rein Taagepara (Professor at U. of Calif.-Irvine;
1992 presidential candidate in Estonia), in
unpublished letter to New York Times, April 1993