Application of Lean Management Principles to Election Systems

Lean was first adopted as a management technique for improving results in manufacturing environments. It is based on the 5 principles of identifying the Value to be created, mapping the Value-Stream (incremental addition of value), ensuring process Flow, orienting the process towards the Pull of the customer and finally eliminating all Waste through a process of continuous improvement. This framework is highly adaptable, and has been applied in recent years to non-manufacturing efforts, such as product development and the retail and service industries. We explore the application of Lean to voting. Applications can be found in the phases of technology development, production, deployment, poll management and more. By following a structured approach based on Lean, the efforts to advance voting solutions in the US can gain in efficiency, security, privacy and credibility over their current state. These will be adapted to deal with the voting environment, which imposes a unique set of challenges and follows priorities different from normal corporations. Additional Lean elements, such as eliminating irregularities through standardization, improved training and process transparency will be reviewed. The development and deployment of Brazilian voting system will be presented as an example of how Lean elements can be used in the voting setting. While not intentionally created by the Lean model, the design, deployment and current use of the Brazilian system is highly complimentary to this model. Finally, we suggest ways in which such an approach can be applied to the U.S. voting system. With a theoretical structure in place, specific improvement efforts can be devised and applied in the field. This study, therefore, is intended as a preliminary effort of identifying a problem and modeling it. It hopes to induce a commitment to Lean which will put in motion a cycle of implementation, elaboration and continuous improvement

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The Superiority of an Ideal Consumption Tax over an Ideal Income Tax

This paper considers the arguments regarding the choice between an ideal income tax and an ideal consumption tax, focusing on an argument made by Atkinson and Stiglitz regarding neutral taxation of commodities. The argument shows that a properly designed consumption tax is Pareto superior to an income tax: it is more efficient and at least as good at redistribution. The major exception to the Atkinson and Stiglitz result is if individuals with equal wages have different propensities to save. In that event, a consumption tax may no longer be Pareto superior to an income tax. A consumption tax will continue, however, to be more desirable than an income tax. It will be strictly more efficient than an income tax, and under reasonable assumptions, better at redistributing from those who are better off to those who are worse off. This result holds true even if one heavily weights the welfare of the poor