'Voteindia', a non-partisan people's movement comprising individuals and civil society organisations across the country, was launched here under the aegis of Lok Satta Convenor Jayaprakash Narayan.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Narayan said 'VoteIndia's' main objective was to make citizens realise the need for systematic reforms and bring about a significant improvement in the existing political system by overcoming the crisis in governance.
He said 'VoteIndia' intends to change the present First-Past-the-Post(FPTP) system to a mixed system of Proportional Representation (PR), while retaining the positive elements of the current constituency-based FPTP system, to ensure fairer representation and better choice of candidates, and prevent fragmentation of the existing polity along caste and communal lines.
''At the state level, direct election of the heads of government by the people should be made possible, so that the government would be accountable to the people, it will not be under pressure from MLAs for survival and can have in-built checks to prevent abuse of office'', he said.
Referring to the present situation, Dr Narayan said in India the political process itself has trapped politicians in a vicious cycle of money-and-muscle power, corruption, divisive politics and abuse of office for survival.
He said VoteIndia campaign is about collective assertion of citizen for changing the nature of country's democracy.
In the initial phase, the campaign would be rooted in eleven cities and surrounding states and thereafter be expanded across the country, he added.
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.