ABSTRACT
Electoral democracy is often defended as the political system that does best at respecting and instantiating important political values relating to equality, freedom, and self-government. One basic principle that can seem to encapsulate them is this: one person, one vote (every person gets a vote, every vote counts equally). This chapter argues that simple one person, one vote systems do poorly from a perspective of political equality, because of dramatic differences in our informal political influence and power. So the chapter introduces an alternative electoral democratic system. The basic idea is simple. There are two parts. First, create a power ranking, according to which all members of the political community are given a power score that reflects their economic, social, and epistemic power. Second, apportion individual vote strength inversely to an individual’s power score. Call this power inversion democracy. This chapter considers ways in which power inversion democracy might be implemented, along with arguments for and against it.
