The Case for Utilitarian Voting

Utilitarian voting (UV) is defined in this paper as any voting rule
that allows the voter to rank all of the alternatives by means of
the scores permitted under a given voting scale. Specific UV rules
that have been proposed are approval voting, allowing the scores 0,
1; range voting, allowing all numbers in an interval as scores;
evaluative voting, allowing the scores -1, 0, 1. The paper deals
extensively with Arrow’s impossibility theorem that has been
interpreted as precluding a satisfactory voting mechanism. I
challenge the relevance of the ordinal framework in which that
theorem is expressed and argue that instead utilitarian, i.e.
cardinal social choice theory is relevant for voting. I show that
justifications of both utilitarian social choice and of majority
rule can be modified to derive UV. The most elementary derivation
of UV is based on the view that no justification exists for
restricting voters’ freedom to rank the alternatives on a given
scale.