Voting of the future will mean getting on line to play a video game. You kill
first the candidate you most dislike. Last man standing is your most favored.
The computer figures it out as the winner having the least kills, giving the
ordinal sequence cardinal weight. During campaigns, you get to push a button on
your remote control to mute a candidate. If a majority of viewers mute him, he
stays muted for that campaigh cycle.
These are fantasies, however pleasing (at least to me). But even libertarian
communities would likely vote at least with reagrd to provisioning public goods
(e.g. national defense). Is there any libertarian analysis of voting modes?
Years ago I did some work on this with George Stigler at the University of
Chicago. People could contract into any voting system they liked, and change
it when they liked. (How, by vote in the old system? Or in the new system?).
People could maybe vote their kids, or their ancestors. Or buy votes from the
indifferent or otherwise willing sellers. Or vote once on their 33rd birthday.
Or maybe only women would be enfranchised. (Why was it again that felons can't
vote?)