Caring for minorities: The Flexible Decision Rule

Abstract

Simple majority rule disregards the interests of the losing minority; their vote does not affect the outcome. When vote outcomes are narrow, close to 50% of voters, the concerns of a significant part of the voters are disregarded. This increases polarization in the population and endangers democracy. This paper proposes a new procedure for political decisions by referendums. The Flexible Decision Rule formally takes into account the percentage of voters accepting or rejecting a proposal. The higher the share y of voters accepting it, the more strongly the proposal is to be put into reality; the lower y is, the less strongly the proposal is to be put into reality. This procedure explicitly considers the concerns of both the supporters and the opponents thus raising the fairness of the vote procedure. In contrast to majority voting, each vote marginalizes the outcome and therefore raises the incentive to participate in the vote increase.