You will be represented whether you like it or not... Some countries have women's quotas, racial quotas, geographical quotas etc.
What are your thoughts on these? I think it is generally a bad idea to impose this sort of requirement on the people. Manipulation of the will of the people "for their own good" isn't right. The government, however enlightened it considers itself, should not subvert the will of the people. It is important that the legislature be accountable and completely under the control of the people. If electoral intervention bad is not a good enough argument... try this. Who decides which groups are worthy of representation and which are excluded from protection? Wouldn't this procedure elect a suboptimal candidate? There is no guarantee that the people's choice would be replaced by someone with similar issues. This would prevent representation in cases where the candidate mandated by the quota replaced a dissimilar candidate. Does this help or hinder actual social change? This is an important argument. It is not clear to me that women's quotas make society less sexist, racial quotas less racist, or geographical quotas less balkanized. Looking to the example of geographical quotas that we have in the Untied States, it has fostered regionalism, in fact. Pork barrel spending is at an all-time high and congressmen bicker over policies based on which state they help or hurt. ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
