Elections, Voting Rules and Paradoxical Outcomes

Elections, Voting Rules and Paradoxical Outcomes PDF Author: William V. Gehrlein
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319646591
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
This monograph studies voting procedures based on the probability that paradoxical outcomes like the famous Condorcet Paradox might exist. It is well known that hypothetical examples of many different paradoxical election outcomes can be developed, but this analysis examines factors that are related to the process by which voters form their preferences on candidates that will significantly reduce the likelihood that such voting paradoxes will ever actually be observed. It is found that extreme forms of voting paradoxes should be uncommon events with a small number of candidates. Another consideration is the propensity of common voting rules to elect the Condorcet Winner, which is widely accepted as the best choice as the winner, when it exists. All common voting rules are found to have identifiable scenarios for which they perform well on the basis of this criterion. But, Borda Rule is found to consistently work well at electing the Condorcet Winner, while the other voting rules have scenarios where they work poorly or have a very small likelihood of electing a different candidate than Borda Rule. The conclusions of previous theoretical work are presented in an expository format and they are validated with empirically-based evidence. Practical implications of earlier studies are also developed.

Elections, Voting Rules and Paradoxical Outcomes

Elections, Voting Rules and Paradoxical Outcomes PDF Author: William V. Gehrlein
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319646591
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Get Book Here

Book Description
This monograph studies voting procedures based on the probability that paradoxical outcomes like the famous Condorcet Paradox might exist. It is well known that hypothetical examples of many different paradoxical election outcomes can be developed, but this analysis examines factors that are related to the process by which voters form their preferences on candidates that will significantly reduce the likelihood that such voting paradoxes will ever actually be observed. It is found that extreme forms of voting paradoxes should be uncommon events with a small number of candidates. Another consideration is the propensity of common voting rules to elect the Condorcet Winner, which is widely accepted as the best choice as the winner, when it exists. All common voting rules are found to have identifiable scenarios for which they perform well on the basis of this criterion. But, Borda Rule is found to consistently work well at electing the Condorcet Winner, while the other voting rules have scenarios where they work poorly or have a very small likelihood of electing a different candidate than Borda Rule. The conclusions of previous theoretical work are presented in an expository format and they are validated with empirically-based evidence. Practical implications of earlier studies are also developed.

Electoral Systems

Electoral Systems PDF Author: Dan S. Felsenthal
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642204414
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Both theoretical and empirical aspects of single- and multi-winner voting procedures are presented in this collection of papers. Starting from a discussion of the underlying principles of democratic representation, the volume includes a description of a great variety of voting procedures. It lists and illustrates their susceptibility to the main voting paradoxes, assesses (under various models of voters' preferences) the probability of paradoxical outcomes, and discusses the relevance of the theoretical results to the choice of voting system.

Voting Paradoxes and Group Coherence

Voting Paradoxes and Group Coherence PDF Author: William V. Gehrlein
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783642266102
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
The likelihood of observing Condorcet's Paradox is known to be very low for elections with a small number of candidates if voters’ preferences on candidates reflect any significant degree of a number of different measures of mutual coherence. This reinforces the intuitive notion that strange election outcomes should become less likely as voters’ preferences become more mutually coherent. Similar analysis is used here to indicate that this notion is valid for most, but not all, other voting paradoxes. This study also focuses on the Condorcet Criterion, which states that the pairwise majority rule winner should be chosen as the election winner, if one exists. Representations for the Condorcet Efficiency of the most common voting rules are obtained here as a function of various measures of the degree of mutual coherence of voters’ preferences. An analysis of the Condorcet Efficiency representations that are obtained yields strong support for using Borda Rule.

Voting Paradoxes and How to Deal with Them

Voting Paradoxes and How to Deal with Them PDF Author: Hannu Nurmi
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3662037823
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Voting paradoxes are unpleasant surprises encountered in voting. Typically they suggest that something is wrong with the way in dividual opinions are being expressed or processed in voting. The outcomes are bizarre, unfair or otherwise implausible, given the expressed opinions of voters. Voting paradoxes have an important role in the history of social choice theory. The founding fathers of the theory, Marquis de Condorcet and Jean-Charles de Borda, were keenly aware of some of them. Indeed, much of the work of these and other forerunners of the modern social choice theory dealt with ways of avoiding paradoxes related to voting. One of the early paradoxes, viz. that bearing the name of Condorcet, has subsequently gained such a prominent place in the literature that it is sometimes called the paradox of voting. One of the aims of the present work is to show that Condorcet's is but one of many paradoxes of voting. Some of these are pretty closely interrelated making it meaningful to classify them. This is the second main aim of this book. The third objective is to suggest ways of dealing with paradoxes. Since voting is and has always been an essential instrument of democratic rule, it is of some in terest to find out how voting paradoxes are being dealt with by past and present methods of voting. Of even greater interest is to find ways of minimizing the probability of occurrence of various paradoxes. By their very nature some paradoxes are unavoidable.

Voting Procedures for Electing a Single Candidate

Voting Procedures for Electing a Single Candidate PDF Author: Dan S. Felsenthal
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319740334
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
This book deals with 18 voting procedures used or proposed for use in elections resulting in the choice of a single winner. These procedures are evaluated in terms of their ability to avoid paradoxical outcomes. Together with a companion volume by the same authors, Monotonicity Failures Afflicting Procedures for Electing a Single Candidate, published by Springer in 2017, this book aims at giving a comprehensive overview of the most important advantages and disadvantages of procedures thereby assisting decision makers in the choice of a voting procedure that would best suit their purposes.

Electoral Systems

Electoral Systems PDF Author: Dan S. Felsenthal
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783642204425
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Both theoretical and empirical aspects of single- and multi-winner voting procedures are presented in this collection of papers. Starting from a discussion of the underlying principles of democratic representation, the volume includes a description of a great variety of voting procedures. It lists and illustrates their susceptibility to the main voting paradoxes, assesses (under various models of voters' preferences) the probability of paradoxical outcomes, and discusses the relevance of the theoretical results to the choice of voting system.

Representation, Power and Electoral Rules

Representation, Power and Electoral Rules PDF Author: Gabriele Esposito
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 131

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Book Description
Is the human being, single man or group, able to understand the influence she has inside a decisional committee? Is she able to treat aIl members fairly in the designing process of a parliamentary assembly, or she will give life to bizarre creatures with pure political motivations? Are current voting rules able to avoid paradoxical outcomes after an election has been run? This thesis answers to these questions using tools from cooperative and non-cooperative game theory, combining a computational and an experimental approach. The first part of the work analyze two-tiers voting systems and electoral laws. The second part focuses on human learning in games associated to the ability of people to choose the situation attributing them the largest power.

Chaotic Elections!

Chaotic Elections! PDF Author: Donald Saari
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
ISBN: 9780821886168
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
What does the 2000 U.S. presidential election have in common with selecting a textbook for a calculus course in your department? Was Ralph Nader's influence on the election of George W. Bush greater than the now-famous chads? In Chaotic Elections!, Don Saari analyzes these questions, placing them in the larger context of voting systems in general. His analysis shows that the fundamental problems with the 2000 presidential election are not with the courts, recounts, or defective ballots, but are caused by the very way Americans vote for president. This expository book shows how mathematics can help to identify and characterize a disturbingly large number of paradoxical situations that result from the choice of a voting procedure. Moreover, rather than being able to dismiss them as anomalies, the likelihood of a dubious election result is surprisingly large. These consequences indicate that election outcomes--whether for president, the site of the next Olympics, the chair of a university department, or a prize winner--can differ from what the voters really wanted. They show that by using an inadequate voting procedure, we can, inadvertently, choose badly. To add to the difficulties, it turns out that the mathematical structures of voting admit several strategic opportunities, which are described. Finally, mathematics also helps identify positive results: By using mathematical symmetries, we can identify what the phrase ``what the voters really want'' might mean and obtain a unique voting method that satisfies these conditions. Saari's book should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand not only what happened in the presidential election of 2000, but also how we can avoid similar problems from appearing anytime any group is making a choice using a voting procedure. Reading this book requires little more than high school mathematics and an interest in how the apparently simple situation of voting can lead to surprising paradoxes.

Geometric Ways of Understanding Voting Problems

Geometric Ways of Understanding Voting Problems PDF Author: Tomas McIntee
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781321964608
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
General conclusions relating pairwise tallies with positional (e.g., plurality, antiplurality ('vote-for-two')) election outcomes were previously known only for the Borda Count. While it has been known since the eighteenth century that the Borda and Condorcet winners need not agree, it had not been known, for instance, in which settings the Condorcet and plurality winners can disagree, or must agree. Results of this type are developed here for all three-alternative positional rules. These relationships are based on an easily used method that connects pairwise tallies with admissible positional outcomes; e.g., a special case provides the first necessary and sufficient conditions ensuring that the Condorcet winner is the plurality winner; another case identifies when there must be a profile whereby each candidate is the 'winner' with some positional rule. Previous work relating the probability of positional and pairwise tallies have used specific selected distributions (primarily the Impartial Culture and Impartial Anonymous Culture assumptions) and specific voting rules (particularly plurality). Techniques are developed here that can be applied to analyzing the probability of conflict between all different positional methods, and between combinations of pairwise tallies with positional results. Results are given for several broad categories of probability distribution, along with a qualitative analysis of the relationship between probability distributions over voter profiles and the likelihood of voting paradoxes. A method of geometrically comparing multiple-stage and single-stage elections is developed, which shows that multiple stage elections are not necessarily more vulnerable to being manipulated, but less vulnerable when all rank-order outcomes matter, and specifically only similar when an election only identifies a first-place winner. In the case where results are defined in terms of a singular winner, a plurality vote is identified as less manipulable in a single stage than in multiple stages, while an antiplurality vote is identified as more vulnerable in a single stage than in multiple stages.

Handbook of Group Decision and Negotiation

Handbook of Group Decision and Negotiation PDF Author: D. Marc Kilgour
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9048190975
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description
Publication of the Handbook of Group Decision and Negotiation marks a milestone in the evolution of the group decision and negotiation (GDN) eld. On this occasion, editors Colin Eden and Marc Kilgour asked me to write a brief history of the eld to provide background and context for the volume. They said that I am in a good position to do so: Actively involved in creating the GDN Section and serving as its chair; founding and leading the GDN journal, Group Decision and Negotiation as editor-in-chief, and the book series, “Advances in Group Decision and Negotiation” as editor; and serving as general chair of the GDN annual meetings. I accepted their invitation to write a brief history. In 1989 what is now the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) established its Section on Group Decision and Negotiation. The journal Group Decision and Negotiation was founded in 1992, published by Springer in cooperation with INFORMS and the GDN Section. In 2003, as an ext- sion of the journal, the Springer book series, “Advances in Group Decision and Negotiation” was inaugurated.