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Exploring the advantages and disadvantages of different voting systems used in the USA and many other Western democracies, this text provides information and analytical tools needed to examine voting systems and their far-reaching political implications

Examines the US electoral reform movement, which has promoted proportional representation, changing the electoral college system, & adopting the alternative vote. While the spoiler problem & the small state bias inherent in the electoral college became evident after the 2000 election, reforming the electoral college, which would mean amending the US Constitution, is unlikely. The article discusses the alternative vote for electoral reform, which might eliminate the spoiler problem but contains limitations. The author states that reforming the plurality voting system with proportional representation has the greatest potential for political progress. It is concluded that the US electoral reform movement is facing political dilemmas & that reformers need to let the average voters know that electoral reform is not just about new vote-counting procedures but is an effort to create a democratic political system responsive to all. 15 References. J. Moses

Few laws have had a more direct impact on American political parties than the requirement that elections be conducted in single-member districts, with the winner being the candidate with the plurality of the vote. This common electoral arrangement has played a significant role in determining the structure of the United States party system and in shaping the behavior of our parties. It is also an arrangement that has largely been taken for granted by most citizens and political scientists.

Book reviewed in this articlePaul Diesing, Science and Ideology in the Policy SciencesDaniel Callahan and Bruce Jennings, Ethics, The Social Sciences, and Policy AnalysisFrank Fischer, Polities, Values, and Public Policy: The Problem of Methodology

Commentators in the field of policy analysis have argued persuasively for the inclusion of ethical evaluations in the analytic process; yet most practitioners in the policy field avoid analyzing moral issues. Standard explanations for this neglect of ethics tend to be inadequate; furthermore, assertions that normative analysis is unnecessary, impractical, impossible, or undesirable are demonstrably weak. Political factors, on the other hand, provide a clearer understanding of the neglect of ethics. Ethical inquiry is shunned because it frequently threatens the professional & political interests of both analysts & policymakers. The administrator, legislator, bureaucracy, & profession of policy analysis itself all resist the potential challenges of moral evaluation. HA.