A comparison of cumulative voting and generalized plurality voting

In market based societies consumers are able to express the intensity of their preference for an object by paying more for it. However, under some voting systems, consumers are unable to express the intensity of their preference for a candidate due to the constraint of the “one person, one vote” principle. Cumulative voting maintains the equality of the “one person, one vote” principle by allotting each voter the same number of votes, while also allowing for expression of intensity of candidate preference. This paper provides an experimental analysis of voter behavior under different voting systems.     

A retrospective on retrospective voting

This paper critically reviews the extensive literature on retrospective voting in response to economic conditions. Each of the major types of analyses which have been performed — time-series analyses of national vote totals, presidential popularity, and cross-sectional analyses of individual survey responses — has raised several interesting and important questions. The answers that have been obtained, however, are only partial and limited, as each of these approaches entails serious problems of estimation and interpretation. Further progress in this area, we argue, requires explicit treatment of conceptual and statistical issues that have hindered previous research: the dynamic formulation of expectations and preferences, the incidence of policy (and nonpolicy) effects across the population, and notions of incumbency and political responsibility.     

A Talmudic constrained voting majority rule

Public Choice - Talmudic Law requires a minimal supermajority (13 out of 23) for conviction, but at the same time, provides that a unanimous conviction leads to a mistrial. We derive the necessary...     

A further experimental study of expressive voting

Do people vote in elections for reasons that have nothing to do with the possibility that their own vote may decide the result of the election? That is, do they vote for “expressive” reasons? There is no hard evidence in the real world which bears on this question. The nearest one can come to an answer is to ask people about why they have voted, but what people say they do is not necessarily the same as their behavior, which cannot be observed on this issue in real voting situations. The existence, or otherwise, of expressive voting is an important question, because the answer provides insights into explaining voter turnout (i.e. to help explain why people vote), as well as whether their vote ever changes as a result of a change in the probability that their vote will decide-the election (i.e. to help explain what people vote). By conducting an appropriate experiment, however, direct evidence of whether some people vote expressively may be obtained. This paper describes such an experiment, and gives clear evidence for the existence of expressive voting.     

Rational voting applied to choice of taxes

Fulton County (Atlanta, Georgia) conducted a referendum on a local option sales tax. The referendum offered voters an opportunity to substitute a 1% sales tax for an equal amount of property taxes. The precinct level voting patterns of the referendum are analyzed using a rational voter framework. The regression results generally support the implication of the model.     

A mathematical one-man one-vote rationale for Madisonian presidential voting based on maximum individual voting power

North Carolina state election law gives county election boards broad authority to determine the form of the ballot used in federal, state, and local races. This paper examines the extent to which ballot formats appear to be strategically chosen and the impact of ballot design on 1992 North Carolina elections. Our results indicate that the form of the ballot influenced the decisions of some voters in statewide races in 1992 and that the design of the ballot may have been chosen strategically by county election boards dominated by the members of one party.     

Asians—A monolithic voting bloc?

Past studies of Asian voting behavior have more often than not treated Asians as a single homogeneous group. Based on this assumption, the studies proceed to predict Asian voting behavior. However, the underlying assumption of homogeneity can produce fallacious results when the group Asians is not homogeneous. In fact, it isoften the case that the separate ethnicities act as separate groups with their own unique political perspectives and identities. Hence, studies of Asian voting behavior should be careful to consider the effects and consequences of such aggregation.     

A critical reappraisal of some voting power paradoxes

Power indices are meant to assess the power that a voting rule confers a priori to each of the decision makers who use it. In order to test and compare them, some authors have proposed ‘natural’ postulates that a measure of a priori voting power ‘should’ satisfy, the violations of which are called ‘voting power paradoxes.’ In this paper two general measures of success and decisiveness based on the voting rule and voters' behavior and some of these postulates/paradoxes test each other. As a result serious doubts are cast on the discriminating power of most voting power postulates.     

Extensions of the Simpson voting rule to the committee selection setting

Public Choice - Committee selection rules are procedures selecting sets of candidates (committees) of a given size on the basis of the preferences of the voters. Two natural extensions of the...     

A test of the predictive dimensions model in spatial voting theory

We model correlated voter-candidate issue data within the framework of the Enelow-Hinich spatial model of predictive dimensions. The empirical consequences of this model of the issue data are surprising and allow for an indirect test of the Enelow-Hinich spatial model. The central prediction of the correlated data model we construct, which depends critically on the underlying spatial model, is tested with issue data from the 1980 NES pre-election interview. The test results are highly supportive of the model's predictions. We conclude both that the spatial model of predictive dimensions is empirically supported and that candidate spatial locations estimated by the model are not an artifact of correlated voter-candidate issue data.     

A spatial model of legislative voting with perceptual error

This paper presents a unidimensional spatial model of voting in which members of Congress vote based on an imprecise perception of roll-call alternatives. The model is applied to the Senate roll-call votes of 1977 to estimate the ideal points of the senators, and to examine the role of a liberal-conservative dimension in describing votes on economic issues relative to social issues. In light of the spatial model, the paper argues that “standard” models of roll-call voting are not based on a theory of choice, and hence, that it is difficult to interpret their results. Alternatives to standard models, based on the spatial model, are developed and are used to analyze the role of ideology in deciding a specific economic issue: coal strip-mining.     

A neo-Downsian model of group-oriented voting and racial backlash

We extend the standard Downsian framework to suppose that voters consider the identity of each candidate's supporters when deciding whom to support, rather than considering only the announced policy positions of the candidates. In particular we posit the existence of a class of voters whose support for a candidate reduces support by some other voters for that candidate. Our most important result concerns the conditions under which the addition to the electorate of new voters on one side of the policy spectrum shifts the equilibrium toward the opposite direction. The model can explain why enfranchisement of blacks did not immediately help the election of liberal candidates.