Let me rephrase: There’s a long tendency of amateurs to come up with some sort of “clever idea” in a field that has been around a long time, and think they’ve got some sort of new insight that people in the field have somehow never managed to consider. And they’re always wrong, because if an amateur can come up with some idea, so can a person in the field, and if the idea hasn’t taken over the field, there’s a reason why.
This is true in the sciences (it happens a lot), but it’s also true in fields such as law. If you have not contacted a lawyer and the lawyer has at least told you “no, it’s not obviously wrong, and no, there isn’t an existing body of literature explaining why it’s non-obviously wrong”, chances are negligible that your idea will pan out.
Finding a clever, new, legal argument for something that no lawyer has considered is about as likely as coming up with a clever, new, argument for why Enstein is wrong.
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.)
Let me rephrase: There’s a long tendency of amateurs to come up with some sort of “clever idea” in a field that has been around a long time, and think they’ve got some sort of new insight that people in the field have somehow never managed to consider. And they’re always wrong, because if an amateur can come up with some idea, so can a person in the field, and if the idea hasn’t taken over the field, there’s a reason why.
This is true in the sciences (it happens a lot), but it’s also true in fields such as law. If you have not contacted a lawyer and the lawyer has at least told you “no, it’s not obviously wrong, and no, there isn’t an existing body of literature explaining why it’s non-obviously wrong”, chances are negligible that your idea will pan out.
Finding a clever, new, legal argument for something that no lawyer has considered is about as likely as coming up with a clever, new, argument for why Enstein is wrong.
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.)