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There are a lot of dumb sales pitches for election reforms, but one of the worst is comparing state or national elections to friends voting on what kind of food to eat or where to go on vacation. There are two problems, what I call the scale and the scope of elections.

Scale, or size, matters for an election system. Everybody knows this. Sometimes we vote by a show of hands, by writing a name on a scrap of paper, or even by saying “aye” or “nay.” All those methods work fine for small groups of people. None would work at all for a city, let alone an entire state. Of course, it would be absurd to use expensive voting equipment when a dozen friends are voting on which restaurant to visit. This is partly because the election is very small, but also because of what I call its scope.

The scope of an election is basically its importance. What is it about? How much will it affect the lives of the voters? Again, everyone knows this, because in certain elections we insist on secret ballots while in other elections we don’t care. Privacy is an example of an election policy that depends on the scope of the election.

Can a few people use ranked-choice voting, for example, to vote on whether to have pizza, sushi, burgers, or tapas? Sure (as long as someone there knows all the RCV rules). Does that mean it’s a good system for a state, or even a town? No. It just doesn’t follow. (I wrote recently on this topic as it relates to the Rank MI Vote failure in Michigan.)

When it comes to election policies, the number of voters participating matters. So does the importance of an election. Reformers who forget these basic facts wind up making silly arguments for flawed and even dangerous proposals.