Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Every explanation I have read about the merits of Proportional Representation voting (PR) have involved a notion that everybody is a racist and when a race is in a minority, their racist agenda cannot be realized. The idea that people don't enter the voting booth (or whatever you call those things nowadays) and that elected officials won't rise to the occasion is petty and small minded. Actually, it's downright un-American.
I have never felt councilmembers I have and haven't voted for, Leslie Ghiz, Roxanne Qualls, Laketa Cole and Cecil Thomas have ever thought any less of me because I have a white penis. The idea that populating our city council with vaginas and black flesh will make for better governance is ridiculous.
PR is credited with getting a mulatto son of an immigrant nominated as a corporate party's candidate for president, but it also shut out a woman whose American heritage runs generations deeper. Women make up a greater proportion of the country. Children of immigrants certainly don't make up a majority. How is this more fair ?
Further, if we want to make sure our demographics are equally represented on the council, we will need to make sure we have the proper number of black and white men and women. The notion gets even crazier when you take in things like religion, economic class, education, age, sexual orientation, handicaps and so on. Indeed, I would think wealth and education would be a better standard for a candidate than race or sex (obviously ideas don't count).
The cost to implement this goofy plan has been estimated to be somewhere between $20,000 and $3,000,000. For the lowball price we get hand counting that will lend itself to fraud, take about 2 weeks to get a result and cost us accreditation from the Federal government. Then, if it doesn't work the way we want - what plan will we try next ? At what cost ?
The best explanation I can find for why Cincinnati abandoned this method of voting in the 50s is that The White Man is an Evil Racist Scumbag.
yay
Only one other city in the US uses this method of voting. Why ?
I guess that after we get this convoluted mess in place, we can work on quotas for juries.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Times have changed since the 1950's. The data that exists on proportional systems easily analyzes ethnic groups and certainly the opposition wants to make this just the NAACP's issue. Republicans, Democrats, Greens and Libertarian supporters are all supportive of better representation on council. This is not a partisan, racial, religious, or even gender issue. If voters vote that way, they can accomplish that, and certainly data on the effects of proportional systems allows for equity in representation.

The campaign to repeal proportional representation in Cincinnati in 1956 was racist. Today, the subtle ways of racism are seen in posts like these that play into some fear of African Americans, or sexism of statements like these about women, don't deserve fair and equitable representation.

For the record, I am a white male and happen to have a penis too. And I am voting YES on issue 8, for proportional representation because my white penis doesn't afford me some superior status in our community. I also want the BEST POSSIBLE leadership for our future. Fortune Magazine, a publication with mostly white penises writing in it, called Cincinnati "one of the best governed cities in America." This is hardly an issue of quotas, but an issue of ensuring equal represenation.

Even black people, and most white people like myself, don't vote based on melanin content, or whether someone has a penis or vagina. We vote based on issues and who matches my personal political platform (what i support and believe in).

Proportional Represenation allows us to voice that support more fully and ensures every vote counts for their favorite candidate and will translate to better representation.