To improve the efficiency of elections of any kind I recommend vote weighting by intelligence.
Behind this idea is the assumption that intelligence is a good indicator of one's judgment. Also, intelligence is of all human properties that might be relevant in this respect the one that is the most reliably and accurately testable.
In practice this could be done by including a brief I.Q. test in the voting procedure, which especially in computerized voting is no problem at all. The weight to be assigned to each vote would be determined by one's score. To add more weight to votes from higher scorers and compensate for their rarity, I advise this formula (although even better ones may be devised later):
Weight = 1/(1 - proportion outscored) - 1
Test norms could be based directly on the voting population. Norming and vote counting would take place in one go. Universal peace would be around the corner.
An even better weighting system would use measures of conscientiousness and associative horizon, next to intelligence (or an aggregate creativity/awareness score), but at this moment I can not offer such measures in a usable form. Also, a possible future society consisting of only or mainly highly intelligent, highly conscientious people, would not need vote weighting at all. Vote weighting should be seen as a temporary instrument in advancing toward a better world.
A few comments to this proposal are dealt with below.
Comment: Vote weighting only deals with the voters and does not affect the actual political parties, politicians, party programs and policies.
Reply: It indirectly does affect all those. When it becomes known there will be vote weighting, new parties will be formed with intelligent programs that would have been without chance in an unweighted system (and/or existing parties will adjust their programs accordingly). On the other hand, existing successful party programs may be without chance in the weighted system.
Comment: Some Nazi leaders had very high intelligence, so that shows that intelligence does not guarantee good policies.
Reply: This comment is mistaken, as in my system it is the intelligence of the voters that is weighted, not that of the politicians or party leaders. So projected onto the German situation of the 1930s, it is the intelligence of the German people that is relevant, not that of the Nazi leaders. Had the people's intelligence been weighted in the elections back then, it is thinkable the Nazis would not have gained power. In this respect I point to the many German intellectuals who fled Germany in those days, many of them Jews and some of them great scientists, obviously well aware of the danger. Had their votes been given greater weight as I propose, Hitler might have been sent home early.
Second, that Nazi leaders had high intelligence is not surprising, as leaders in any organization must have at least well above average intelligence; That is simply a practical requirement for leadership. What matters here is the intelligence of the masses who voted the Nazis into power.
Comment: Will this weighting system not result in an advantage for the political left (liberalism, progressiveness, socialism, multiculturalism), considering that intellectuals typically promote leftism?
Reply: Again, it is the intelligence of the voters, not that of the leading figures, that is relevant in vote weighting. The proverbial leftist intellectuals are merely the leaders, the spokesmen of the left. It is well known that the voting population of left-wing parties consists largely of the lower social classes, such as the working class and various minorities, like immigrants. Given what we know of the relation between social stratification and the distribution of intelligence in modern society (The first more or less reflects the second, and this is getting more and more so because of "social mobility", the phenomenon that the intelligent and able tend to rise to higher social classes than they were born in) it is not to be expected that vote weighting will give an advantage to the left.
As for the left-wing intellectuals themselves, it is not certain they actually vote left-wing. The leading figures of the left are usually not members of the lower social classes they represent, but are well-to-do and, once in the voting cabin, may well "vote with their feet" instead of putting their vote where their mouth is.
Nevertheless, it must be admitted that "intelligence is not everything", and that eventually other personality aspects must be included in the weighting process too, which will further reduce the possible unfair advantage of leftist intellectuals.
A "system of plural voting based upon intelligence indices" is also mentioned by Lewis M. Terman in "The Great Conspiracy or the Impulse Imperious of Intelligence Testers, Psychoanalyzed and Exposed by Mr. Lippmann", New Republic 33 (December 27, 1922): 116–120. See http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4960 .