Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by rayiner 556 days ago
Look, that’s a fine point for corporate laws. They should be rigorously enforced.

But election laws are completely different. Enforcement of election laws inherently allows unelected lawyers and judges to second guess voters. It puts the justice system above the electoral system, which is corrosive to democracy. What are the checks and balances on the people enforcing those elections laws?

2 comments

It happens all the time. The US supreme court stopped a recount of the elections in Florida in 2000. In Berlin, the 2021 state elections went so wrong that they had to be repeated two years later. And so on.
> Enforcement of election laws inherently allows unelected lawyers and judges to second guess voters.

Um, legal enforcement of almost any standard allows unelected lawyers and judges to second-guess "the popular will" — for example, in buying goods and services, many people vote with their dollars for the cheapest option as opposed to quality (as airlines have learned). Without enforcement, this "revealed preference" can drive a cost-cutting race to the bottom on the part of producers — adverse impacts on society be damned (e.g., pollution and other negative externalities).

And voters, in particular, can be subject to buyer's remorse: see, e.g., the recent polling about the increase in the number of Brits who voted for Brexit and now regret it. [0]

[0] E.g., https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/politics/brexit-poll...