George:

At the risk of being extremely unpolitical, is it not time to rethink the city councilors "at large" system in Charlottesville?

The Europeans use slates also, but they have a proportional representation system, so that each party is represented proportionally to the votes gathered. In Charlottesville, that would mean that if the Republicans have a minimum of 11% of the vote they would have one councelor. It is not a very good system, but it may be somewhat more democratic than what we have now.

Personally I prefer the traditional anglosaxon system of elections by district; one candidate one district. Enough said.

Henry Weinschenk (electronic mail, March 23, 2002)