Student Congress elections should follow new system

TO THE EDITOR:

You were right about the problem but wrong about the remedy in “Yo, Congress, represent!” (Dec. 2).

Electing Student Congress all by residence or all by class — neither way reflects each student’s self-chosen basis for representation. The problem started when student government copied its voting system from governments in the United States.

As political scientists know, no self-respecting constitution drafters outside this country copy our backward voting systems nowadays.

The brightest exception is the advanced ballot system in Cambridge, Mass., — home of Harvard University and MIT.

In spite of our public government’s bad examples, many of our most advanced universities elect their student leaders with some form of proportional representation, such as “choice voting.” That way, each student can choose their own basis of voting and not be confined to concepts of residence, class or any other basis chosen for the voter by others.

What if a voter thinks sex, race, Greek/independent or field of study is more important to them? Or, heaven forbid, they want to vote for the best candidates with the best platforms of all the residence areas, all the classes, all the sexes, all the departments, etc.?

With proportional representation they can, and the election results fairly represent everyone for a change. Voter turnout tends to go up because they learn that it works better.

Korky Day
Chapel Hill