HELEN Reid wrote last week ('Please give me some answers', Letters, April 7) asking how she can vote for specific candidates in order of preference at the forthcoming European elections.

o Unfortunately, in the European elections she can't.

o However, she will doubtless be interested to learn that the independent commission on the voting system has recommended a system for general elections that will allow her to vote in exactly the way she is asking for. At some point in the future we will be asked to vote in a referendum on whether to keep the current first-past-the-post system or adopt the system recommended by the commission.

o By the sounds of it Helen Reid should be joining Make Votes Count -- the organisation formed to campaign for this change. Because if there's one thing she can be sure of it's that nothing will change unless people campaign for it.

o Anyone wanting to find out more about Make Votes Count and what we are doing locally can contact me on 0181 882 1892.

|STUART MACON,

|Hoppers Road,

|Winchmore Hill.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.