1,2,3, Representation by Enid Lakeman

The practical invention of modern democratic elections, by Carl Andrae, and also Thomas Hare, is over one and a half centuries old, as is the organised resistance to their implementation. The Andrae system, as it is called in Scandinavia, by now, is really no more than a name. The Hare system, which its author called a Single Transferable Vote (STV), endures, mainly on the fringes of English-speaking countries. And in more or less diluted form.
This is because the electoral system, that gives most power to voters, gives least job security to
political incumbents.
The question is how to enable the public to see thru the booming fog of obscurity and illusion that protects the vested interests of the political class in ineffective elections.
This state careerism has out-matched the unorganised common man.
Some of the best writings on electoral reform have remained unorganised, and therefore less effective in changing public opinion. This editor organised uncollected writings of two of its greatest exponents, John Stuart Mill and H. G. Wells, for popular presentation of the truth about elections.
Even then, with such formidable protagonists, brought to bear directly on the problem of democracy versus incumbency, I remained vaguely dissatisfied.
There was another British writer, who was a world authority on electoral systems. Mill and Wells are wonderful informants but history condemned them to go without that vital ingredient where Lakeman excels: evidence!
Moreover, her exertions were legendary, on spreading the good news about the people power of transferable voting. Hopefully, books of the complete collected writings of Enid Lakeman will be published, without further delay.
Meanwhile, this collection has been permitted, by the Executor of the Enid Lakeman Estate, thru the good offices of former colleagues.

As a foot-note, it is to be hoped that the largely forgotten original research of our brothers in reform, the heroic North American progressives, like Clarence Hoag and George Hallett and their colleagues, will also be liberated in systematically collected and easily accessible form. I have seen more or less century-old resources, languishing behind publishers pay-walls.

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