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Vermeule on Open-Secret Voting

By Lawrence Solum

Adrian Vermeule (Harvard University - Harvard Law School) has posted Open-Secret Voting on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Stock debates about transparency and secrecy usually assume that open voting and secret voting are mutually exclusive. But these positions present a false alternative; open and secret voting can be employed as complements in a larger decision-procedure. In what follows I will propose a hybrid or dual procedure of open-secret voting, and attempt to specify the conditions under which that procedure works well. I suggest that open-secret voting can best be justified as an institutional means of obtaining a second opinion from the voting group. A second opinion of this sort might produce informational benefits either for the members of the voting group itself, for outside parties, or for both. This is a companion paper to Adrian Vermeule, Second Opinions, available on SSRN.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on July 23, 2010 (boomark / email).