Citation
Nicholas Stephanopoulos, Eric M. McGhee & Steven Rogers, The Realities of Electoral Reform, 68 Vand. L. Rev. 761 (2015).
Abstract
Prevailing theories of electoral reform share a common flaw: they provide no empirical way to determine whether electoral policies actually improve responsiveness or alignment — the degree to which policy outputs correspond to voters’ preferences. These theories operate at too normative a level to be useful to courts or policymakers. Using newly available data on voters’ and legislators’ preferences at the state legislative level, the authors calculate responsiveness and alignment for individual legislators and whole chambers across the country over two decades. They pair these calculations with a new database of state electoral policies covering franchise access, party regulation, campaign finance, redistricting, and governmental structure. The results show that no category of reform consistently improves responsiveness or alignment, and that the effects of specific policies vary widely across settings. The Article draws implications for how courts and policymakers should evaluate electoral reform proposals.