Why might voting reform be a pressing issue?

We often elect our leaders with ‘first-past-the-post’-style voting, but this can easily lead to perverse outcomes. Better voting methods could lead to better institutional decision-making, better governance in general, and better international coordination.

Despite these potential benefits, ideas in this space often get little support. One reason might be that current political leaders — those with the most power to institute reforms — have little incentive to change the systems that brought them to power. This might make this area particularly difficult to make progress in, though we still think additional effort in this area may be promising.

Another perhaps even more serious issue is the systematic lack of representation of future generations’ interests in policymaking. To learn more about this issue and about potential solutions, see this recent paper by Will MacAskill and Tyler John. One group trying to address this issue in practice in the UK is the All Party Parliamentary Group for Future Generations.

There is also the importance of voting security to prevent contested elections, discussed in our interview with Bruce Schneier.

Learn more about voting reform

• Podcast: We use the worst voting system that exists. Here’s how Aaron Hamlin is going to fix it.
• Center for Election Science
• EA Forum hub on institutions for future generations

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Want to learn more about global issues we think are especially pressing? See our list of issues that are large in scale, solvable, and neglected, according to our research.

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