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ericposner

10 karma · joined May 3, 2015

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ericposner··on Quadratic Voting (2014)
Think how hard this would be in real life, plus it's illegal to buy votes, and impossible given the secret ballot.
ericposner··on Quadratic Voting (2014)
Existing laws that prohibit people from bribing others to vote their way would be sufficient to block this behavior. So would the secret ballot.
ericposner··on Quadratic Voting (2014)
If a Koch brother really wants to use up $40 billion on voting, he could put 200,000 votes on a single issue. If everyone opposes his position, he could be easily outvoted by a small town of low-income people casting a couple votes each for a few dollars. They would also get nearly all his money.
ericposner··on Quadratic Voting (2014)
People will be more likely to vote in the first place because they can exert greater influence over the outcomes they care about (say, gay marriage). Once in the voting booth, they can use marginal votes against things they oppose but less passionately (say, farm subsidies). Of course, there are complex design issues--just how much should people vote about, and should a representative system be used instead. But on balance QV should motivate people to vote more not less.
ericposner··on Quadratic Voting (2014)
People in each minority group will also care about issues outside their group. Gun owners care about safety net levels. Gay people care about the environment. Family-values types care about crime. So people won't use all their credits or dollars for single issues. That is the logic of the quadratic function; marginal votes even for something you care a lot about will be too expensive unless used for something else.