January 2002
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Theory shows that voting is subject to paradoxes, while it also appears that a voting result is as much caused by the used procedure as by the voters’ preferences. From a moral point of view, the choice of the procedure naturally is the major issue. A key insight is that morality presumes time. In a static world everything is given, and there is no place for individuals who have to ponder their moral choices. The real world is dynamic however, and the most challenging voting paradoxes concern budget changes. The paper develops a new "Borda Fixed Point" mechanism that provides a better protection to surprises by such budget changes. The analysis is put into context with a review of the proper meaning of Kenneth Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem and a review of Donald Saari’s argument on symmetry. (This version has a formal appendix.)