Closeness matters: monotonicity failure in IRV elections with three candidates

A striking attribute of instant runoff voting (IRV) is that it is subject to monotonicity failure—that is, getting more (first-preference) votes may result in defeat for a candidate who would otherwise have won and getting fewer votes may result in victory for a candidate who otherwise would have lost. Proponents of IRV have argued that monotonicity failure, while a mathematical possibility, is highly unlikely to occur in practice. This paper specifies the precise conditions under which this phenomenon arises in three-candidate elections and applies them to a number of large simulated data sets in order to get a sense of the likelihood of IRV’s monotonicity problem in varying circumstances. The basic finding is that the problem is significant in many circumstances and very substantial when IRV elections are closely contested by three candidates.     

The Alternative Vote and Coombs Rule versus First-Past-the-Post: a social choice analysis of simulated data based on English elections, 1992–2010

This paper presents a social choice analysis, using simulated data based on English general elections from 1992 through 2010, of the properties of three voting rules: First-Past-the-Post, the Alternative Vote, and the Coombs Rule. More specifically, the paper examines (1) the plurality, anti-plurality, and Condorcet status of candidates in each election and the interrelationships among these statuses, (2) the effects of strict and partial single-peakedness of voter preferences, and (3) the identity of winners, Condorcet efficiency, and the relationship between votes and seats under the three voting rules. The analysis considers only the case of three candidates and, in the manner of basic social choice theory, the set of candidates and voter preferences over them are taken to be fixed.     

中国仲裁机构改革初论

本文从中国仲裁机构和中国的机构仲裁面临的问题和现状着手,着眼于仲裁和仲裁机构的发展,考虑到目前中国仲裁所面临的包括入世之后法律服务业对外开放的局面,提出如下建议一是减少仲裁机构的权力、增加仲裁庭和法院的权力;二是明确设立机关的权力义务、界定与设立机关的关系;三是减少设立后的“无因”管理、设立独立的行业自律性组织;四是加强机构管理人员的专业性、消除行政色彩。