My principal purpose on this
page is to make publicly available any information regarding the Cambridge
Municipal Elections, both historical and analytical. The City of
Cambridge is unique in that it is the only municipality in the United
States to use the single-transferable vote (STV) form of proportional
representation (PR) for its City Council and School Committee elections,
and it is done so for over 60 years. The City of New York used the system
for its local school board elections until very recently when, I am told,
the local school boards were abolished. (The New York State legislature
had previously attempted to eliminate the PR elections in a midnight
maneuver which was subsequently challenged in court.).
My hope is that other municipalities will adopt
PR election methods in some form as an effective way to ensure minority
representation (political, ethnic, geographic, etc.) without the need for
politically driven, unsatisfactory, and contrived districting schemes.
- Robert Winters