American democracy needs a redesign

With the election finally upon us, I’ve been thinking about “fair division,” a classical problem in economics that is concerned with dividing a resource among people who have some claim on it.

The simplest version of this concept is familiar to most parents. Imagine you have a cake and that cake needs to be divided between two siblings. But each kid prefers a certain part — say the strawberry frosting on one side or the sprinkles on the other. To complicate things, you don’t really know each child’s preference, because each is afraid their brother or sister will take their favorite bit (e.g. messing with your sibling can be more fun than getting the frosting).

The mathematically fairest solution is to let one child cut the cake and the other choose the piece they prefer. This way, they both feel like what they ended up with is fair: the first because they are incentivized to cut the cake into pieces they are equally happy with, and the second because they get to choose the piece they regard as better.

This "I cut, you choose" solution is found in many settings, from the Bible to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Its study belongs in the rich field of mechanism design, an "engineering" branch of economics (game theory, specifically) which seeks to build institutions and processes that achieve certain outcomes that are socially or economically desirable, such as fairness, efficiency or revenue-generating.

Mechanism design is all around us. Including in a democracy. After all, a democracy is the sum of its institutions and processes — and it is only as good as those structures. Thoughtful mechanism design is tantamount to having a functioning system of government. And right now, American democracy is in dire need of updating.

[A] democracy is the sum of its institutions and processes -- and it is only as good as those structures.

As America’s founding fathers sketched out our constitutional system, they engaged in some serious mechanism design. From the beginning, they wanted specific outcomes, such as preventing tyranny, separating powers and guaranteeing certain freedoms. Sovereignty and agency for the states was also important, so they left mechanisms like elections, districting and electoral vote allocation to the states to design as they saw fit.

Many outcomes set forth by our founders are ideals that we still find valuable; but we have also, over time, found some to be insufficient or outdated. The most glaring example: how the original design enshrined slavery and prevented anybody from voting who wasn’t a white male landowner.

Over time, we updated the design of American democracy to make sure all citizens can vote and that minority populations are better represented. But there are many mechanisms, including the Electoral College, for example, that we have not revisited or scrutinized. Many mechanisms no longer serve their purpose, either because our values have changed or because they have been perverted so dramatically that they’ve become implements of disenfranchisement, division and misrepresentation. This is often to the satisfaction of the political elites, Republicans and Democrats alike, who are intent on preserving the apparatus that elected them.

The framers could not have foreseen that presidential races would come down to a handful of voters in a few states. A swing of about 20,000 voters in three states would have changed the result of the 2020 race — and something similar will almost certainly happen in this election. The framers would also find issue with the fact that a candidate can win the White House with only 23% of the popular vote. They would be shocked to learn that many electors can no longer be counted on as people of integrity, and that some state legislatures yield to the commands of a candidate.

The mechanism failure in American democracy is not confined to the Electoral College, however. It extends to most of our current democratic practices.

The mechanism failure in American democracy is not confined to the Electoral College, however. It extends to most of our current democratic practices. The plurality voting that we use to elect our officials elevates candidates who don’t win the majority of votes and are often those who espouse fringe or extreme ideologies. A small fraction of voters decide Congressional and presidential primary elections, and the outcome in all but a handful of races is predetermined because of gerrymandering. Our system’s single-winner districts  -- as opposed to larger districts that elect multiple candidates simultaneously, as in most healthy democracies around the world — protect incumbency and shut out a diversity of political opinion.

These outcomes point to a democracy that no longer serves us. According to recent New York Times/Siena poll, an eye-popping 76% of poll respondents agree that our democratic infrastructure is failing. People are worried about the future of American democracy, as we face the prospect of political violence following the Nov. 5 election. People increasingly feel that their voices do not matter, that the two-party system is destructive, that political polarization is out of control, and that our political system does not uphold values we find worthy and meaningful.

It is within our power to change those failing mechanisms. We can advocate for electing the president using the popular vote, ending gerrymandering, implementing ranked choice voting, open primaries and multi-winner districts. These are just some of the mechanisms that would bring about more meaningful representation and better capture voters’ preferences. They are also known to increase participation, discourage negative campaigning, and help counter the disillusionment with politics. They bring more diversity into the political arena by lifting up third parties and independent candidates. Voter satisfaction increases, and with it, a belief in the government to act on our behalf. Mechanism design can point the way; in fact, one of the proposed ways to fix gerrymandering is based on the "I cut, you choose" method.

The engine of our democracy is rusty, sputtering, and no longer able to take us where we want to go. It is time to design and build a new one.

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