Abstract
Voting procedures nowadays are anachronistic on two counts: the technology of recording and counting votes often is outmoded and too much is expected from the mechanisms of democratic choice. Even if votes always and everywhere were counted perfectly, election outcomes would still be arbitrary since no collective choice process can divine the “general will”. The crucial line in any state is the one dividing private decisions from collective decisions. Democracy is part of the package for nations freeing themselves from totalitarianism’s grip, but it may be the last, rather than the first thing that should be added to the mix.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abramson, P. R., Aldrich, J. H., Paolino, P., & Rohde, D. W. (1995). Third party and independent candidates in American politics: Wallace, Anderson, and Perot. Political Science Quarterly, 110(3), 349–367.
Akerlof, G. A. (1970). The Market for “Lemons”: Quality uncertainty and the market mechanism. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 84(3), 488–500.
Aldrich, J. H. (1995). Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
Black, D. (1958). The Theory of Committees and Elections. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge and New York.
Beck, N. (1975). A note on the probability of a tied election. Public Choice, 23(3), 75–79.
Buchanan, J. M. (1954). Individual Choice in Voting and the Market. Journal of Political Economy, 62(4), 334–343.
Buchanan, J. M., & Congleton, R. D. (1998). Politics by Principle, Not Interest: Toward Nondiscriminatory Democracy. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge and New York.
Buchanan, J. M., & Tullock, G. (1962). The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor.
Chamberlain, G., & Rothschild, M. (1981). A note on the probability of casting a decisive vote. Journal of Economic Theory, 25(1), 152–162.
Cox, G. W. (1997). Making Votes Count: Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge and New York.
Davis, O., DeGroot, M., & Hinich, M. (1972). Social preference orderings and majority rule. Econometrica, 40(January), 147–157.
Davis, O., & Hinich, M. (1968). On the power and importance of the mean preference in a mathematical model of democratic choice. Public Choice, 5(Fall), 59–72.
Ehrlich, S. (2001). The Probability of Recounts under Differing Electoral Laws. Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association. URL: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~ehrlichs/probability-of-recounts.pdf.
Ekelund, R. B., Jr., & Tollison, R. D. (1997). Politicized Economies: Monarchy, Monopoly, and Mercantilism. Texas A&M University Press: College Station.
Herrnson, P., & Green, J. C. (Eds.). (2003). Responsible Partnership? The Evolution of American Political Parties in the Post-War Era. University of Kansas Press: Lawrence.
Herron, M. C., & Sekhon, J. S. (2003). Overvoting and representation: An examination of overvoted Presidential ballots in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Electoral Studies, 22(1), 21–47.
Herron, M. C., & Sekhon, J. S. (2004). Black candidates and black voters: Assessing the impact of candidate race on uncounted vote rates. Journal of Politics, 67(1), forthcoming.
Hinich, M., & Munger, M. (1994). Ideology and the Theory of Political Choice. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor.
Holcombe, R. G. (1994). The Economic Foundations of Government. Macmillan: London.
Holcombe, R. G. (2002). From Liberty to Democracy: The Transformation of American Government. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor.
Kimbering, W. C. (n.d.). The Electoral College. Federal Election Commission, Office of Election Administration: Washington, DC.
Lott, J. R., Jr. (2003). Non-voted ballots and discrimination in Florida. Journal of Legal Studies, 32(January), 181–220.
Lott, J. R., Jr. (2004). Documenting Unusual Declines in Republican Voting Rates in Florida’s Western Panhandle Counties in 2000. http://ssrn.com/abstract=276278.
Madison, J. (1787). The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard against Domestic Faction and Insurrection (continued). Daily Advertiser, Thursday, November 22. Reprinted as Federalist No. 10, http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm.
Margolis, H. (1977). Probability of a tie election. Public Choice, 31(Fall), 135–138.
Mebane, W., & Sekhon, J. S. (2004). Robust estimation and outlier detection for overdispersed multinomial models of count data. American Journal of Political Science, 48(2), 392–411.
Mencken, H. L. ([1926] 1982). Notes on Democracy. Knopf: New York. Reprinted in A Mencken Chrestomathy. Vintage Books: New York.
Mueller, D. C. (2003). Public Choice III. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge and New York.
Munger, M. C. (2000). Analyzing Policy: Choices, Conflicts, and Practices. Norton: New York.
O’Rourke, P. J. (1991). Parliament of Whores. Atlantic Monthly Press: New York.
Plato (1956). Republic. In E. H. Warmington & P. G. Rouse (Eds.), Great Dialogues of Plato, trans. by W. H.D. Rouse. New English Library (Mentor): New York.
Plott, C. R. (1972). Ethics, social choice theory and the theory of economic policy. Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 2(2), 181–208.
Plott, C. R. (1991). Will economics become an experimental science? Southern Economic Journal, 57(April), 901–919.
Pulzer, P. (2001). Votes and resources: Political finance in Germany. German Politics and Society, 19(1), 1–36.
Rabinowitz, G., & MacDonald, S. E. (1986). The power of the states in U.S. Presidential Elections. American Political Science Review, 80(1), 65–87.
Riker, W. H. (1982). Liberalism against Populism. W.H. Freeman: San Francisco.
Rosenstone, S. J., Behr, R. L., & Lazarus, E. H. (1986). Third Parties in America, 2nd ed. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.
Rousseau, J.-J. (1988). On Social Contract or Principles of Political Right. In A. Ritter & J. Conaway Bondanella (Eds.), Rousseau’s Political Writings. Norton: New York.
Stone, W., & Rapoport, R. (2001). It’s Perot, stupid! The legacy of the 1992 Perot Movement in the major-party system, 1992–2000. Political Science and Politics, 34(2), 49–58.
Tullock, G. (1967). The general irrelevance of the general impossibility theorem. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 81(2), 256–270.
Wand, J. N. A., Shotts, K. W., Sekhon, J. S., Mebane, W. R., Jr., Herron, M. C., & Brady, H. E. (2001). The butterfly did it: The aberrant vote for Buchanan in Palm Beach County, Florida. American Political Science Review, 95(4), 793–810.
Winger, R. (1994). The importance of ballot access. Long Term View (University of Massachusetts Law Journal), 2(2), 40–45.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Munger, M.C. Nineteenth-century voting procedures in a twenty-first century world. Public Choice 124, 115–133 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-005-4749-9
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-005-4749-9