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Quadratic Voting (2014)

ericposner.com

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Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)

#11

Post by lazzlazzlazz »

eridius wrote: post #3

Just reading the linked summary (and not the paper itself), it seems like this doesn't take wealth disparity into account. If the cost for your votes is the square of the votes you want to cast, then that means people with a lot of money can trivially buy significantly more votes than people with very little money, even if they don't necessarily care more about the issue than the people with very little money. It see…

The cost per vote increases quadratically. If the first vote costs $1, then buying one million votes would cost one trillion dollars. If there are 50 million voters, then this trillion dollars would be distributed among them: $200,000 each.

It would be extremely difficult to buy massive numbers of votes without paying hugely to the rest of the electorate.

Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)

#12

Post by emmab »

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #11
eridius wrote: post #3

Just reading the linked summary (and not the paper itself), it seems like this doesn't take wealth disparity into account. If the cost for your votes is the square of the votes you want to cast, then that means people with a lot of money can trivially buy significantly more votes than people with very little money, even if they don't necessarily care more about the issue than the people with very little money. It see…

The cost per vote increases quadratically. If the first vote costs $1, then buying one million votes would cost one trillion dollars. If there are 50 million voters, then this trillion dollars would be distributed among them: $200,000 each. It would be extremely difficult to buy massive numbers of votes without paying hugely to the rest of the electorate.

it increases quadratically not exponentially

Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)

#14

Post by lazzlazzlazz »

emmab wrote: post #12
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost per vote increases quadratically. If the first vote costs $1, then buying one million votes would cost one trillion dollars. If there are 50 million voters, then this trillion dollars would be distributed among them: $200,000 each. It would be extremely difficult to buy massive numbers of votes without paying hugely to the rest of the electorate.

it increases quadratically not exponentially

Yeah, obviously. Thanks.

Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)

#15

Post by higherpurpose »

I still prefer approval voting over it:

http://www.electology.org/#!approval-voting/cc04

1) elimintes the spoiler effect problem

2) most "approved"/liked candidate can win, not necessarily the most "popular" within a certain group

3) gives lesser known candidates/parties a much better chance to compete and rise up against the incumbents

4) statistically proven to be one of the voting systems with the least remorse

5) very simple (essentially HN style voting)

Range voting could also work, but it's debatable whether the extra "scores" are worth the loss of simplicity. Range voting also seems to have a bigger degree of regret, although it does seem to do slightly better with electing the "ideal" candidate.

Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)

#16

Post by torthrw »

ekurutepe wrote: post #8
eridius wrote: post #3

Just reading the linked summary (and not the paper itself), it seems like this doesn't take wealth disparity into account. If the cost for your votes is the square of the votes you want to cast, then that means people with a lot of money can trivially buy significantly more votes than people with very little money, even if they don't necessarily care more about the issue than the people with very little money. It see…

Theoretically, this could be fixed by making the cost of votes expressed as a percentage of your income and/or wealth. Some european countries like Switzerland are applying this principle to traffic tickets. It's not uncommon for rich people in fast cars paying few hundred thousand dollars for a speeding ticket.

Really? I'd argue 1% of my income making minimum wage is far less disposable and than a 1% of the one percents salary. And so I would be far less inclined to buy more votes. Then taking your Euro analog, is it right/fair to make someone pay more (even say in proportion to their salary) than any other person for a vote? Who decides how much I should pay for my vote? Is it based on current salary? Because if it is there are a whole load of very rich people who technically have a very small salary. Is it based on net worth? Sounds like a nightmare to me.

Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)

#17

Post by jacques_chester »

> Majority rule based on one-person-one-vote notoriously results in tyranny of the majority–a large number of people who care only a little about an outcome prevail over a minority that cares passionately, resulting in a reduction of aggregate welfare.

Except in voluntary voting systems, where highly motivated voters dominate the apathetic majority.

Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)

#19

Post by Strilanc »

How does this system deal with the logarithmic value of dollars, and the asymmetry in who has them?

When you get ln(X) happiness from X dollars, you are sacrificing 1/X happiness per dollar spent. A billionaire buying a thousand votes is paying ln(10^9 - (10^3)^2) - ln(10^9) ~= 1 milli-utilon, but a thousandaire buying ten votes is paying ln(10^3 - 10^2) - ln(10^3) ~= 100 milli-utilons.

It seems like billionaires, who easily get a factor of a thousand advantage in marginal votes-per-happiness cost over 99% of the population, will massively distort a quadratic voting market.

Uniformly redistributing the voting cost makes that effect smaller, but I don't think it overcomes the logarithmic effect.

Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)

#20

Post by tlholaday »

eridius wrote: post #3

Just reading the linked summary (and not the paper itself), it seems like this doesn't take wealth disparity into account. If the cost for your votes is the square of the votes you want to cast, then that means people with a lot of money can trivially buy significantly more votes than people with very little money, even if they don't necessarily care more about the issue than the people with very little money. It see…

The paper has examples with dollar amounts starting around page 30.

If ten thousand poor people buy one vote each for $1, the wealthy would-be tyrant needs to buy 10,001 votes to win, at a cost of $100,020,001. If the tyrant goes ahead and does this, after the election all the poor people will receive $10,001 each.

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