Another Consideration in Minority Vote Dilution Remedies: Rent-Seeking

Lockard Alan
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Lockard Alan: St. Lawrence University

Review of Law & Economics, 2006, vol. 2, issue 3, 397-421

Abstract: In some areas of the United States, racial and ethnic minorities have been effectively excluded from the democratic process by a variety of means, including electoral laws. In some instances, the Courts have sought to remedy this problem by imposing alternative voting methods, such as cumulative voting. I examine several voting methods with regard to their sensitivity to rent-seeking. Methods which are less sensitive to rent-seeking are preferred because they involve less social waste, and are less likely to be co-opted by special interest groups. I find that proportional representation methods, rather than semi-proportional ones, such as cumulative voting, are relatively insensitive to rent-seeking efforts, and thus preferable. I also suggest that an even less sensitive method, the proportional lottery, may be appropriate for use within deliberative bodies, where proportional representation is inapplicable and minority vote dilution otherwise remains an intractable problem.

Date: 2006
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DOI: 10.2202/1555-5879.1086

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