Clearly there is a function in which an impassioned minority can overcome an apathetic majority in America right now (indeed, gay marriage, kind of the poster c

Clearly there is a function in which an impassioned minority can overcome an apathetic majority in America right now (indeed, gay marriage, kind of the poster child for QV right now, was pretty much exactly that scenario). Presumably if you're the kind of person who wants QV, you regard the current method as insufficient or inefficient or both. (Personally, I think that QV is interesting, but I don't ultimately favor it). Again, though, you're kind of weirdly trying to talk about situations with impassioned majorities. They already win. If they really want to pay extra to win by tons more, well, they're wasting their money. If your ultimate point is that quadratic functions don't increase fast enough ("the wealthy have exponentially more wealth"), then just choose a faster-increasing function. As I pointed out in another sub-thread, 2^n means that the 20th extra vote you buy would cost 1,000,000 times as much as the first extra vote you buy, and the 100th vote you buy would cost more money than anyone has ever or will ever have. That should pretty solidly allay concerns that the top 5% or top 1% will ever buy a majority that way, while still leaving open some interesting things that happen with a minority of 20% or higher. (Personally, I doubt that an exponential function would be necessary, though a polynomial function of higher order than quadratic might).