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Quadratic Voting

Quadratic Voting is a voting system where voters can express the intensity of their preferences by purchasing votes, with costs increasing quadratically. The system aims to achieve more efficient collective decision-making by allowing people to vote multiple times on issues they care deeply about.

How It Works

Basic Mechanism

  1. Each voter receives a budget of "voice credits"

  2. Voters can purchase additional votes on any issue

  3. The cost of votes increases quadratically: 1 vote costs 1 credit, 2 votes cost 4 credits, 3 votes cost 9 credits, etc.

  4. The winning option is determined by the total number of votes (not voters)

Mathematical Formula

For \(n\) votes on an issue, the cost is \(n^2\) voice credits:

  • 1 vote = 1 credit

  • 2 votes = 4 credits

  • 3 votes = 9 credits

  • 4 votes = 16 credits

  • etc.

Theoretical Benefits

Preference Intensity

Unlike traditional voting where each person gets one vote regardless of how much they care, quadratic voting allows people to express how much they care about different issues.

Efficiency

The system theoretically maximizes social welfare by allowing those who care most about an outcome to have proportionally more influence, while making extreme influence expensive.

Minority Protection

Minorities with intense preferences can pool their resources to influence outcomes that matter most to them, preventing tyranny of the majority.

Examples and Applications

Corporate Governance

  • Shareholders allocating votes across different corporate proposals

  • Budget allocation within organizations

  • Priority setting for product features

Public Policy

  • Citizens voting on budget allocations across different city projects

  • Prioritizing which infrastructure projects to fund

  • Deciding resource allocation in universities or communities

Digital Platforms

  • Users voting on platform features or content moderation policies

  • Community governance in online spaces

  • Prioritizing bug fixes or feature requests

Advantages

  1. Captures intensity: Reflects not just preferences but strength of preferences

  2. Prevents domination: Makes it expensive for any group to dominate all decisions

  3. Encourages participation: People can focus their influence where they care most

  4. Theoretically optimal: Maximizes utilitarian social welfare under certain conditions

Criticisms and Challenges

Wealth Effects

  • Richer participants may have effective advantages even with equal voice credits

  • May replicate existing power imbalances in society

Complexity

  • More complex than traditional voting systems

  • Requires education for effective participation

  • Strategic considerations may be difficult for average voters

Practical Implementation

  • How to distribute voice credits fairly

  • Preventing vote buying or coercion

  • Ensuring privacy while preventing multiple identities

Gaming and Strategy

  • Sophisticated voters might manipulate outcomes

  • Coordination problems between like-minded voters

  • Uncertainty about others' voting strategies

Real-World Experiments

Taiwan's vTaiwan

  • Used for digital consultation on policy issues

  • Combined with other deliberative democracy tools

  • Focus on consensus-building rather than winner-take-all decisions

Colorado House Democratic Caucus

  • Used for internal priority setting among legislators

  • Helped allocate limited legislative time and resources

Corporate Settings

  • Some companies experimenting with quadratic voting for internal decisions

  • Budget allocation and project prioritization

Quadratic Funding

  • Similar mechanism applied to public goods funding

  • Contributors' contributions are matched quadratically based on number of supporters

Conviction Voting

  • Time-weighted voting where conviction builds over time

  • Used in some blockchain governance systems

Futarchy

  • Prediction market-based governance system

  • "Vote on values, bet on beliefs"

Future Prospects

Quadratic voting represents an interesting middle ground between pure democracy (one person, one vote) and market mechanisms (one dollar, one vote). While still experimental, it offers potential solutions to some persistent problems in collective decision-making, particularly in contexts where:

  • Preference intensity matters significantly

  • Traditional voting leads to polarization

  • Groups need to allocate limited resources

  • Digital implementation is feasible

The system continues to evolve through real-world experimentation and theoretical refinement.