Political Capital

Democracy as we know it is a flawed system by design. It's not really reasonable that 51% of the people get to tell the other 49% how to live. Furthermore, the results of elections tend to be skewed towards the opinions of, well, those who actually vote. But getting more people to vote isn't really the solution, because there's an argument to be made that, if you don't really know or care about an issue, you shouldn't be voting on it. But just because you don't know enough about the issue now doesn't mean you won't want to do something about it later once you've seen the effects that it has on your life. But by then it's too late. You missed your chance to change things back when you—or anybody—had no way of knowing what the effects would actually be.

One solution to these issues would be to replace the current “one man, one vote” system with an electoral currency, which can be spent on a given election or saved as the voter sees fit. At each election, a voter is issued a certain number of votes (these would be likely kept track of electronically rather than physically) and is permitted to use as many of those votes as he sees fit, towards any issue. Having been issued seven votes, for example, he might spend one vote each on three propositions and three votes on a fourth proposition, saving his last vote for future elections. Or he might be a single issue voter, and blow all of his votes on a single proposition. Or, deciding he doesn't really care about this election at all, might simply bank all of his votes for future elections.

However, not all votes spent would necessarily be surrendered. Only the votes that are in the majority would be collected, and anybody who votes on the losing side has his votes refunded for use in future elections. This ensures that, following each election, the voice of the minority becomes slightly more powerful, such that no majority can ever maintain absolute power over the minority indefinitely. The practical result of this would be that the view of the majority tends to prevail with a frequency relative to the size of that majority, rather than 100% of the time regardless of how strong the mandate actually is, as under the current system.

This would raise several questions about rules regarding votes and their distribution. One might argue that higher income tax payers should receive more votes, on the basis that they contribute more to government and should have more of a say. One might also believe that people with a greater number of minor dependents should receive more votes, because they represent the will and interests of more people. There might be other criteria for issuing additional (or fewer) votes as well. Perhaps new votes are only issued if you've voted in the previous election at all, whether or not your votes actually won.

And then, of course, there is the important question: Could votes be sold or traded? Well, if you see them as a form of “electoral currency” then there's no reason they couldn't be. On the plus side, this could be a further incentive towards keeping the politically apathetic or unaware from casting votes for things they have no business casting them for. However, this might lead to a situation where the economically disadvantaged are consistently put in a position where they feel forced to sell their votes, resulting in their de facto disenfranchisement. This may not actually be a bad thing, on the theory that since rational behavior is to maximize benefit for oneself, people in such circumstances would still be better off than under the current system where they are forced to accept something of lesser value to them (voting) in lieu of something of greater value (money). However, there are numerous ways that might work to counter this effect. Issuing votes proportional to income would actually seem to be one way to do this, since it would be infeasible to buy enough votes from the poor to counter the larger number of votes from the wealthy, and cost-prohibitive to buy the votes of the rich. Some other ideas might include revoking the refundability of transferred votes, thereby making them less valuable, or having unspent votes gather “interest”, but only for the original bearer. However, the possibility exists that this would still leave the system too open to corruption, and it might be necessary to forbid any sort of transfer or trading of votes.

As another consideration, each proposition or representative might not necessarily have the same cost. In fact, it would be more reasonable to have more broadly important measures cost more than local matters. A vote for an increased water usage fee or a city council member might only cost a single vote, whereas a vote for president might cost ten times as much (actually, it should be the other way around, since a water usage fee or noise ordinance is likely to be far more relevant to the average citizen than who's the CEO du jour of the corrupt political-military machine, but I digress).

One of the things that perpetuates the current system, with all its flaws, is the fear that, by voting for something or someone that's unpopular, you're “throwing your vote away”. The sentiment, therefore, is that you should vote for something that has a chance of winning rather than something you believe in. This is so antithetical to the continued existence of a free society that it is clear that the current system must be abolished at once, and replaced with a system such as the one outlined here, where every vote truly has value.