I am painfully aware of this. I’ve been doubting myself throughout, and for awhile just left the idea in the drawer precisely out of fear of its naïvety.
Ultimately I did write it up and post, for three reasons: (1) to avoid getting instantly dismissed, to get my idea properly assessed by a legal expert in the first place, I needed to lay things out clearly; (2) I think it’s at least possible that our voting system has largely become invisible, and that many high-powered legal experts are focused on other things (of course there are die-hard voting reform activists, but how much do those two groups overlap?); (3) I really do think the evidence has changed, slowly mounting against plurality voting. E.g. before the modern rediscovery of approval voting in the 70s and its subsequent study in the following decades, their would not have been enough evidence to support the case. Much of my argument turns on just how easy it would be for states to adopt approval voting.
So like… maybe now is the time, and I just happened to stumble on the idea? It’s not exactly clever. And it’s not like it somehow overturns some long-time legal precedent – as far as I know, voting methods have just never even been tried in court. I’m really just asking: why not?
(OK, there is one wild section about Rational Basis review that would significantly alter a long-time precedent, and that’s the weakest section of the post. But the Anderson test shouldn’t devolve into RB review anyway.)
I am painfully aware of this. I’ve been doubting myself throughout, and for awhile just left the idea in the drawer precisely out of fear of its naïvety.
Ultimately I did write it up and post, for three reasons: (1) to avoid getting instantly dismissed, to get my idea properly assessed by a legal expert in the first place, I needed to lay things out clearly; (2) I think it’s at least possible that our voting system has largely become invisible, and that many high-powered legal experts are focused on other things (of course there are die-hard voting reform activists, but how much do those two groups overlap?); (3) I really do think the evidence has changed, slowly mounting against plurality voting. E.g. before the modern rediscovery of approval voting in the 70s and its subsequent study in the following decades, their would not have been enough evidence to support the case. Much of my argument turns on just how easy it would be for states to adopt approval voting.
So like… maybe now is the time, and I just happened to stumble on the idea? It’s not exactly clever. And it’s not like it somehow overturns some long-time legal precedent – as far as I know, voting methods have just never even been tried in court. I’m really just asking: why not?
(OK, there is one wild section about Rational Basis review that would significantly alter a long-time precedent, and that’s the weakest section of the post. But the Anderson test shouldn’t devolve into RB review anyway.)