Quadratic Voting (2014)

How do you mine it?

They address this issue in the paper, "Voting Squared: Quadratic Voting in Democratic Politics", page 32:

> QV works best with a large number of voters: the more voters there are, the more accurately the system works. QV’s efficiency relies on all voters perceiving the chance of their changing the outcome with an additional vote as the same. When the number of voters is large, such a perception is (approximately) accurate. If it is small, it is less so. With a small population, it becomes possible for people to have different perceptions about the likelihood that an additional vote will change the outcome (that is, the likelihood that there would otherwise be a tie, in which case an additional vote is pivotal). For example, in a small group that consists of a number of moderate voters on one side of an issue, and an extreme voter on the other side, the extreme voter will believe that a tie is less likely than the moderate voters will believe. The moderate voters assume that all voters are (on average) moderate and so discount the possibility that anyone is extreme, while the extreme voter knows that this is not the case because she knows that she is an outlier. If the extreme voter cares more about the issue than the moderate voters in aggregate, she will buy fewer votes relative to her utility than is socially desirable and QV will suffer the same bias towards the majority that other democratic procedures entail, though in a less severe form. If the situation were reversed and the extreme voter cared less than the three others in total, a reversed failure could occur. The three voters are overconfident and expect to win easily, but the extremist knows that, because of her strong preferences and thus her willingness to buy many votes, a tie is more likely than it appears. In this case, QV could lead to dictatorship in the same manner as standard vote buying. Despite this, simulation evidence indicates that QV almost always outperforms majority rule.

Exactly, if we've already created a system where buying votes is accepted, why would I buy 1000 votes for 1000^2 money, if I might as well pay 1000 uninterested people 2 money each to vote the same way as I?

The ability to "negative vote", really should be a thing. Since the US system, in particular, is set up in a way that makes change unrealistic for the "common folk" it would be the only way I can think of for poor people to really get any disapproval across.

The "artificial currency" would ensure votes accurately reflect the importance an individual attaches to an issue relative to other votes, but in practice this gives significantly more "voting power" to groups which seldom participate in votes, even where it is difficult to believe the intensity of their preferences are stronger. Given a fixed budget to be used over a number of votes, an essentially apolitical person told by their community leader to use all their votes in opposing a particular issue they know little about will have more influence on the outcome than a highly-informed, politically-motivated and civic minded regular referendum participant, yet it's difficult to argue the absolute intensity of the preference of the regular voter is lower (this is of course related to the standard welfare economics criticism of cardinal utilities).

This isn't a problem if the individuals apportioning their vote budget are similarly-highly-motivated legislators prioritising from a known raft of policies whilst being well informed about which initiatives are most likely to meet with strong opposition (though it significantly advantages parties able to coordinate the efficient distribution of their votes). Probably they can handle the complexities of a voting budget that compensates the losers too.

But for a broader electorate that doesn't excel in performing stochastic optimisation problems, doesn't have good intelligence to help them vote tactically, doesn't know what future votes might be, the quadratic nature of the voting system doesn't deal with the problem of budgeted and secret voting being a game of iterated prisoners' dilemma; it might even intensify the problems.

It's not too difficult to devise a scenario in which it actually makes the "tyranny of the majority" problem worse: a minority of bigots wish very strongly to enact a law against a minority of regular targets. The disinterested majority wishes to avoid diluting their future voting power by participating, whilst the victimised minority wishes to hold back some of their voting power to avoid being disenfranchised when faced with conceivable future bullying initiatives[1]. In a secret ballot, the bigots can conceivably win if the groups are a similar size (even if they can subsequently reverse the decision)

[1]This is mitigated if the losers get their own votes back as compensation, but actually worsened if they get higher compensation, in which case optimum strategy in a iterated electoral battle is to win by the narrowest possible margin, whilst voting for something incredibly unpopular is a practical way to increase your future influence.