Choosing Representatives by Lottery Voting
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Work data:
ISSN: 0044-0094Alternate URL:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6fd7/0eabac758800771f8baf880e7064cf361aa3.pdf
Type of work: Article (academic)
Categories:
Politics and Political ScienceTags:
electionsAbstract:
Current electoral systems, though purporting to count votes equally, in fact create legislatures that fail to represent the whole community. This Note presents a thought experiment inviting the reader to consider seriously an alternative method of selecting representatives to legislatures that combines features of four traditional egalitarian systems: voting, lottery, quota, and rotation. Under "lottery voting," citizens would vote for representatives in local districts, much as they do today. Rather than automatically electing the candidate who receives a majority or plurality of votes, however, lottery voting chooses the winner in a lottery of the ballots cast: A single ballot is randomly drawn, and the candidate chosen on that ballot wins the election.' If A receives sixty percent of the overall vote and B gets forty percent, A does not automatically win; rather, A's ex ante chances of winning are sixty percent and B's are forty percent.'
Section I of the Note examines the puzzle of minority participation in a majoritarian political system and suggests that justice for minorities may require a new method of selecting legislatures; Section II discusses the American jury and other historical uses of political lotteries; Section III sketches the implications of lottery voting and demonstrates how it could be used to create a richer democracy; and Section IV surveys the practical and constitutional limitations on lottery voting as a mechanism of social choice. The ideas presented furnish a novel perspective on various problems of democratic and constitutional theory.