Voter Ignorance and the Limits of Reform

Many believe that voter ignorance threatens democracy. Consequently, ambitious institutional remedies have been proposed – epistocratic suffrage exams, foot voting, devolution of decisions to the local level, new bureaucratic agencies to inform voters, and more. There are reasons to doubt such proposals will actually improve democratic governance, however. The mistake these proposals share is a failure to recognize that voter ignorance comes in many forms, and that existing remedies may target the wrong kinds of ignorance. We develop a new typology of voter ignorance and show that every existing proposal leaves certain types of ignorance unaddressed. If it is these neglected forms of ignorance that drive bad democratic outcomes, then the entire portfolio of remedies that philosophers have proposed is superfluous – they literally make no progress toward better governance. We end by briefly sketching how to think about the problem of voter ignorance going forward.