As the election finally approaches, I’ve been thinking about “fair division,” a classic problem in economics that concerns the sharing of a resource among the people who are entitled to it.

The simplest version of this concept is familiar to most parents. Imagine that you have a cake and this cake must be shared between two siblings. But every child prefers a certain part – like the strawberry frosting on one side or the sprinkles on the other. To complicate matters, you don’t Really Know each child’s preferences, because everyone is afraid of their sibling taking their favorite piece (for example, playing with your sibling may be more fun than getting the frosting).

The mathematically fairest solution is to let one child cut the cake and the other choose the piece they prefer. In this way, they both feel that what they got is fair: the first because they have an incentive to cut the cake into pieces that they are equally happy with, and the second because they can choose the piece that they consider to be the best.

This “I cut, you choose” solution is found in many contexts, since the Bible At United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. His study is part of the rich field of mechanism designan “engineering” branch of economics (game theory in particular) that seeks to construct institutions and processes to achieve certain socially or economically desirable outcomes, such as fairness, efficiency or income generation.

The design of mechanisms is omnipresent around us. Including in democracy. After all, a democracy is the sum of its institutions and processes – and its value depends on these structures. Thoughtful design of mechanisms equates to a functioning system of government. And right now, American democracy is in dire need of an update.

(A) democracy is the sum of its institutions and processes – and its value depends on these structures.

While America’s founding fathers outlined our constitutional systemthey engaged in serious mechanism design. From the beginning, they wanted specific outcomes, such as preventing tyranny, separating powers, and guaranteeing certain freedoms. State sovereignty and action were also important, so they left it up to the states to design mechanisms such as elections, redistricting, and allocating electoral votes as they saw fit.

Many of the outcomes set forth by our founders are ideals we still find valuable; but we also, over time, noticed that some were insufficient or outdated. The most obvious example: how the original design enshrined slavery and prevented anyone from voting who was not a white male landowner.

Over time, we have updated the conception of American democracy to ensure that all citizens can vote and that minority populations are better represented. But there are many mechanisms, including the Electoral College, for example, that we have not revisited or examined. Many mechanisms no longer serve their purpose, either because our values ​​have changed or because they have been so radically perverted that they have become instruments of disenfranchisement, division and misrepresentation. This often pleases political elites, both Republicans and Democrats, who are keen to preserve the system that elected them.