Abstract
The prioritizing of ballot structure over contest structure to seek a way out of the dilemma of disempowerment is explored in this chapter. Here, readers are plunged into a deep, dark pool of theory—but with airtight goggles and a powerful flashlight. A good conceptual framework is an indispensable guide to reform options, the most promising of which use distributive instead of exclusive input rules for the expression of variable levels of support across multiple candidates per contest. Multi-mark ballots are smarter ballots. The lessons of theory reveal that the dilemma of disempowerment’s apparent stranglehold on voters is an artifact of the input structure of one-mark ballots.
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Notes
- 1.
For first-round vote-tallies: Conseil (2017a).
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
For a brief and accessible indictment of plurality voting’s crimes against basic political equality: McLean (1991, 177).
- 5.
- 6.
Rae (1967, 16).
- 7.
Rae (1967, 17–18). More detailed analysis of alternative schemes for classifying ballot structure appears in the Appendix of this book, in the section on “Ballot Structure and Voting Theory.”
- 8.
- 9.
For a similar distinction between “uninominal” and “plurinominal” ballots made by the French economist Antoinette Baujard: Laslier (2011a, 11).
- 10.
On the “median voter theorem,” a famous concept in political science which is unrelated, strictly speaking, to median output rules within the concept of ballot structure: McLean et al. (1996, xi–xii).
- 11.
- 12.
On STV’s low manipulability in general: Bowler and Grofman (2000, 268–89). On its lower levels of tactical voting than other systems: Chamberlin (1985), Laslier (2016), and Van der Straeten et al. (2016). On tactical voting under binary, Pass-Fail schemes of grading: Van der Straeten et al. (2016, 451–53) and Granic (2017, 32). For the argument that over-stating and under-stating should be considered legitimate expressions of intense preferences: Poundstone (2008, 241).
- 13.
- 14.
For a brief normative defense of strategic votes, nestled in a review of dozens of empirical studies of the phenomenon: Gschwend and Meffert (2017).
- 15.
Quotation at Blais and Degan (2018, 306). For the conclusion that, in parallel PR systems with two votes for one legislative election, supposedly strategic choices probably reflect “either sincere misaligned preferences for parties and candidates or … a limited vote-choice menu”: Plescia (2016, 115).
- 16.
On the introduction of STV in Australia: Sawer (2004, 481).
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Maloy, J.S. (2019). Lessons from Theory: The Blunted Blade of One-Mark Ballots. In: Smarter Ballots. Elections, Voting, Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13031-2_4
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