Voters value electoral fairness independently of which policies result

Evidence

This is not to deny that voters care about the identity or party label of the representatives they elect to office for reasons independent of the policy outcomes those representatives are likely to produce. Voters may want to replace incumbent officeholders who are incompetent, corrupt, or personally dislikeable, regardless of the consequences for policymaking. To the extent that voters have policy-independent electoral preferences along these lines, then some forms of electoral entrenchment will be viewed as problematic on grounds that have no equivalent when it comes to legislative entrenchment. Consider, for example, a bipartisan gerrymandering scheme that generates safe, noncompetitive districts for all incumbents but results in perfectly proportional representation for the two major parties. Governance outcomes under such a scheme would continue to reflect the policy preferences of the electorate, and indeed more voters would find themselves in districts represented by someone who shared their policy preferences and party affiliation than if districting were random. Yet incumbent officeholders who might otherwise have been unseated would be safely entrenched in office. Many people might prefer a “fair” election, even if the only change would be to replace those incumbents with co-partisans who would generate similar policy outcomes. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 166

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Political power matters mainly for what it produces in policy outcomes — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 170; Voter preferences respond to framing even when expected values are equal; Seemingly fair outcomes can arise from self-referent loss aversion rather than fairness preferences. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 312 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Voter preferences respond to framing even when expected values are equal #expands (0.80)
• Seemingly fair outcomes can arise from self-referent loss aversion rather than fairness preferences. #complicates (0.80) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 312
• Bad times make voters choose riskier challengers even with equal expected value #qualifies (0.78)