Direct Election Quotes

In America you elect the electoral college and they select the President. In Russia, the people select the President directly. This is more democratic.

Elections by the state legislatures will be better than those by the people.

The EU suffers from … a structural democratic deficit. Of its seven institutions, just one—the European Parliament—is directly elected by the people, and it cannot initiate legislation.

I like the power given the Legislature to levy taxes, and for that reason solely approve of the greater house being chosen by the people directly.

The President is the direct representative of the American people and is elected by the people and responsible to them.

A significant disadvantage of the present system is that there is no direct relationship between the elected members and the electors … the member is only responsible to the party leadership or, worse still, to the party bureaucracy

[The Electoral College] affords a moral certainty that the office of the Presidency will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.

Under the French system, you have to take into consideration that every five years, the president is directly elected by the people. He's the one that has the legitimacy.

Selection [of UN delegates] by governments cannot give the peoples of the world the feeling of being fairly and proportionately represented. The moral authority of the UN would be considerable enhanced if the delegates were elected directly by the people. Were they responsible to an electorate, they would have much more freedom to follow their consciences.

The United Nations would probably have to rest on two pillars: one constituted by an assembly of equal executive representatives of individual countries, resembling the present plenary, and the other consisting of a group elected directly by the globe's population in which the number of delegates representing individual nations would, thus, roughly correspond to the size of the nations.

We favor a constitutional provision limiting the office of President and Vice-President to one term, and providing for the election of Senators of the United States by a direct vote of the people.

Those who care about constitutional development should look beyond universal suffrage for the chief executive election and turn their sights to universal suffrage for Legco as well.

Maoists want a directly elected president, but this will give birth to an autocrat.

Some countries have a parliamentary republic, some are presidential republics and some are still monarchies, but no one sees them as not being democratic. In some countries regional leaders are appointed from the centre and in others they are elected. In Russia, the president is elected through direct secret ballot, and in the United States, the president is elected through a system of electoral colleges.

There should be a study of a house directly elected by the people of the world to whom the nations are accountable.

State Legislatures were better qualified to elect the Members than the people were

It would be as unnatural to refer the choice of a proper character for chief magistrate to the people, as it would be to refer a trial of colors to a blind man.

The election of the Executive ought to be by the national Legislature, that then respect will be paid to that character best qualified

We have direct elections for the European Parliament. We have the [European] Commission that is independent from the member states. Of course we all belong to a country, but we are independent from our governments.

Well, first, if I am fortunate enough to be elected to the U.S. Senate, it won't be a party that will have elected me. It will be the people of California.

I promise that as a president elected in a direct popular vote, I will try to be the voice of all citizens.