A coincidence of great and minor powers

[David Hilvert]

On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:37:58 -0400
Michael Allan <mike at zelea.com> wrote:

> Political theory doesn't seem to shine any light on it.

There are probably areas of political theory that apply, if only incidentally.
E.g.:

(a) Preferences can be considered multi-dimensional.  I might like person A's
position on automobile emissions standards, and person B's position on food
safety standards.  How can I vote a position consistent with person A on
automobile emissions, and consistent with person B on food safety, without
tracking every legislative decision?

(b) Agenda-setting and legislative rules may be important to political
outcomes.  How can it be ensured that the decisions effectively available to a
typical voter are not artificially constrained (e.g., how can it be ensured
that a typical voter can express a preference for a position on automobile
emissions without this effectively being tied to a position on food safety
standards?).  This point is related to (a), but can be considered separately.

I would be curious to know how these points might be addressed by a
Votorola-like system.  Obviously, both (a) and (b) can be satisfied in the
degenerate case, where each voter drafts his or her own legislation from
scratch, but this would probably (rightly) be seen as inefficient.  In the case
where legislation is typically not drafted from scratch by every voter, then,
can (a) and (b) reasonably be satisfied?