Voting turnout, equality, liberty and representation: epistemic versus procedural democracy

Abstract

Some epistemic approaches to democracy evince an exclusivistic approach to voting participation whereby high turnout elections are thought to produce adverse outcomes. On this view, high turnout introduces greater input from less politically competent citizens which, in turn, leads to bad governance. I challenge these claims from both an empirical and normative perspective by defending procedural democracy against epistemic democracy. I argue that it is mistaken to privilege epistemic considerations over other values that democracy is meant to serve, in this case, political equality, liberty and representativeness. Further, it is not clear that high voter turnout leads to worse government. In sum, (electoral) epistemic democracy is hard to justify given that (a) even in theory it is unconvincing as a form of democracy and (b) even on its own terms it is not demonstrably better than procedural democracy at ‘performing’ democracy.

Keywords:

• voting
• equality
• liberty
• turnout
• epistemic democracy
• procedural democracy

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank two referees for their constructive comments on an earlier draft of this paper. She also thanks her research assistants Kelly McKinley and Louise Malcolm for their able assistance in preparing the manuscript.

Notes

1. It should be noted here that the following argument only applies to voter turnout levels in authentic and properly functioning democracies.

2. Contrary to Brennan’s prediction, these sorts of outcomes are more likely to result from low turnout elections (see Hill, Chapter 6, passim in Brennan and Hill 2014).

3. Aristotelian government was also, of course, a school of civic virtue that enabled people to pursue the ‘good life’ of ‘noble actions’ (Nichomachean Ethics, 1280b39–1281a4) hence his personal preference for rule by the aristoi or ‘best persons’ who possess not only property and freedom but virtue as well (Nichomachean Ethics, 1281a4–8).

4. Even if we could divest political leaders of personal attachments and interests there is still no guarantee that they would remain free of biases.

5. Similarly, Karl Popper saw democratic elections as the only way to get rid of leaders without bloodshed (Popper 1962).

6. This is partly due to Plato’s ideal of rule of the wise but also because of his social engineering (including his eugenics programme) and utopianism. Popper thought that this led to the appalling policies of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler (see Popper 1962, p. 31 and passim). To be sure, there have been times when high turnout has been correlated with an unhealthy and ultimately destructive demagogy. The best-known example is the case of the mass electoral popularity of the Nazi Party in Germany during the 1930s. However, although there is no guarantee against this happening in high turnout elections, the contemporary norm is otherwise.

7. For Aristotle too the ‘function of liberty’ within democracies is to ‘live…as one likes’ and not as a ‘slave’ (Politics, 6.1317b). Obviously, however, Paine and Aristotle have vastly different conceptions of who should qualify as citizens within democracies.

8. It also embraces the prudential assumption that when elites rule on our behalf they are unlikely to be ruling in our interests.

9. A vote is deemed invalid if the voter leaves the ballot paper blank or marks it in a manner that contradicts the prescribed method.

10. In one study that did find a distorting effect (that is, an effect on electoral outcomes) this was not significant (Selb and Lachat 2009, p. 591).

11. According to the miracle of aggregation thesis mass democracies with only a small percentage of informed voters perform just as well as democracies made up entirely of informed voters. The assumption behind this is that ignorant voters will vote randomly in a fashion that is equivalent to a coin toss. Hence, the net effect of random voting will be neutral, whereas the votes of the politically competent will decide the outcome.

12. United Nations Human Rights Committee, General Comment 25, paragraphs 4, 10.

13. See Dunn v. Blumstein (1972) 405 U.S. 330, 343.