The Expressive Case against Plurality Rule

ONE interesting, but rarely noted, electoral outcome of November 8, 2016 was that Maine became the first state in the United States of America to reject first-past-the-post voting (hereafter “plurality rule”) and adopt preferential voting instead. Should states and countries follow Maine’s lead? In the wake of 2016, many have argued that preferential voting produces different, better outcomes in terms of their consequences with respect to candidates (that is, it has better effects with respect to who runs, and who wins). These arguments turn out to be far more complex and contentious than their proponents seem to recognize. Which should prompt us to ask whether there is a simpler, more ecumenical case against plurality rule. That is what I aim to provide in this article. The key will be to shift our focus away from questions about electoral consequences with respect to candidates and towards fraught electoral choices for voters. These choices mostly arise in contexts where A and B are the only candidates who have a chance of winning, but C is the only candidate whom it is morally conscionable to endorse: A is a greater evil, B is a lesser evil, and C is a principled but unpopular candidate. Under plurality rule, the only way for voters to decrease the odds that A wins is to endorse B, and thereby endorse a lesser evil. There are two compatible bases for thinking that an electoral system should not generate such fraught choices for voters. One rests on thinking that there are two types of moral norms (for example, consequentialist and expressive norms) that conflict in such cases, generating actual voting dilemmas. Another is that to many voters there seem to be two types of norms that conflict in such cases, generating apparent dilemmas. Such apparent dilemmas are still morally problematic, primarily because they lead to prolific political miscommunication: since votes are (treated as) expressive acts, ballots cast for B will be (mis)interpreted as endorsements of B. There is an important broader lesson from this discussion. When we evaluate voting decisions, many think we should focus on much more than how they affect electoral results. The central point of this article is that the same holds when we