Should all votes have equal weight? Overcoming normative disagreements around affectedness-weighted voting

This paper challenges the assumption that democratic voting requires equal voting power for all enfranchised citizens and advocates instead for an affectedness-weighted model of voting. It corresponds to the third chapter of a book (but it will be presented as a stand-alone paper, so that other workshop participants don’t need to read the previous chapters to understand it). In the first chapter, I clarify the concept of affectedness-weighted allocations, distinguishing it from affectedness-unweighted inclusive-exclusive allocations. Some scholars have argued for an affectedness-weighted model on intrinsic grounds or the instrumental ground that it could produce better laws and policies. Kim Angell and Robert Huseby take it that “the moral force of the All Affected Principle flows from the value of personal autonomy, or ‘self-rule’” (2020, p. 368; see also Brighouse and Fleurbaey 2010, p. 155). They oppose Robert Goodin’s and Ana Tanasoca’s choice to understand the all affected interests principle “consistently with democratic egalitarianism” (2014, p. 749). In Goodin’s and Tanasoca’s view, affectedness-weighted voting (including double voting which is the focus of their article) should be permitted only insofar as everyone ultimately gets equal power over the world. This is different from Harry Brighouse’s and Marc Fleurbaey’s idea that weighted allocations are desirable for instrumental reasons because it would better advance a “prioritarian social objective” (2010, p. 155) and would better respect the collective preferences (Fleurbaey 2008; Brighouse and Fleurbaey 2010, pp. 142–146). In the second chapter, I review significant reasons to oppose affectedness-weighted voting, on intrinsic grounds, drawing among others from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s idea of the social contract (Rousseau 1762 IV, 2), and instrumental grounds, drawing among others from Robert Talisse’s (2019, p. 93) concept of overdoing democracy. The third chapter, which will be presented at the workshop, provides my solution to the normative disagreements emerging from the two previous chapters. Although criticisms against affectedness-weighted voting are valid, I argue that they stem from a value trade-off which was already at stake when opting to use a voting procedure or not. Therefore, a group of people who commits to a vote should endorse affectedness-weighted allocations of voting power for consistency reasons. Another normative disagreement may then arise between proponents weighted allocations about the precise way in which power should be distributed in relation to affectedness, e.g. the extent to which affectedness should be taken into account. I use a distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory to solve this difficulty. I complete my defense of affectedness-weighted voting by arguing that is not only more desirable, it is also urgently needed because of flaws in the current system, including the on-going contestation of the allocation of power, the obsolescence of the criteria used nowadays to allocate voting power, and the increasing demand for direct democracy.