Disapproval voting

About: Disapproval voting is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2658 publications have been published within this topic receiving 76948 citations.

Manipulation of voting schemes: a general result

Abstract: It has been conjectured that no system of voting can preclude strategic voting-the securing by a voter of an outcome he prefers through misrepresentation of his preferences. In this paper, for all significant systems of voting in which chance plays no role, the conjecture is verified. To prove the conjecture, a more general theorem in game theory is proved: a gameform is a game without utilities attached to outcomes; only a trivial game form, it is shown, can guarantee that whatever the utilities of the players may be, each player will have a dominant pure strategy. I SHALL PROVE in this paper that any non-dictatorial voting scheme with at least three possible outcomes is subject to individual manipulation. By a "voting scheme," I mean any scheme which makes a community's choice depend entirely on individuals' professed preferences among the alternatives. An individual "manipulates" the voting scheme if, by misrepresenting his preferences, he secures an outcome he prefers to the "honest" outcome-the choice the community would make if he expressed his true preferences. The result on voting schemes follows from a theorem I shall prove which covers schemes of a more general kind. Let a gameform be any scheme which makes an outcome depend on individual actions of some specified sort, which I shall call strategies. A voting scheme, then, is a game form in which a strategy is a profession of preferences, but many game forms are not voting schemes. Call a strategy dominant for someone if, whatever anyone else does, it achieves his goals at least as well as would any alternative strategy. Only trivial game forms, I shall show, ensure that each individual, no matter what his preferences are, will have available a dominant strategy. Hence in particular, no non-trivial voting scheme guarantees that honest expression of preferences is a dominant strategy. These results are spelled out and proved in Section 3. The theorems in this paper should come as no surprise. It is well-known that many voting schemes in common use are subject to individual manipulation. Consider a "rank-order" voting scheme: each voter reports his preferences among the alternatives by ranking them on a ballot; first place on a ballot gives an alternative four votes, second place three, third place two, and fourth place one. The alternative with the greatest total number of votes wins. Here is a case in which an individual can manipulate the scheme. There are three voters and four alternatives; voter a ranks the alternatives in order xyzw on his ballot; voter b in order wxyz; and voter c's true preference ordering is wxyz. If c votes honestly, then, the winner is his second choice, x, with ten points. If c pretends that x is his last choice by giving his preference ordering as wyzx, then x gets only eight points, and c's first choice, w, wins with nine points. Thus c does best to misrepresent his

Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll Call Voting

Abstract: In this wide-ranging study, the authors use 200 years of congressional roll call voting as a framework for an interpretation of important episodes in American political and economic history. By tracing the voting patterns of Congress throughout the country's history, Poole and Rosenthal find that, despite a wide array of issues facing legislators, over 80 percent of a legislator's voting decisions can be attributed to a consistent ideological position ranging from ultraconservatism to ultraliberalism.

Making Votes Count: Strategic Coordination in the World's Electoral Systems

Abstract: List of tables and figures Series editor's preface Preface PART I. INTRODUCTION: 1. Introduction 2. Duverger's propositions PART II. STRATEGIC VOTING: 3. On electoral systems 4. Strategic voting in single-member single-ballot systems 5. Strategic voting in multimember districts 6. Strategic voting in single-member dual-ballot systems 7. Some concluding comments on strategic voting, PART III. STRATEGIC ENTRY: 8. Strategic voting, party labels and entry 9. Rational entry and the conservation of disproportionality: evidence from Japan PART IV. ELECTORAL COORDINATION AT THe SYSTEM LEVEL: 10. Putting the constituencies together 11. Electoral institutions, cleavage structures and the number of parties PART V. COORDINATION FAILURES AND THE DEMOCRATIC PERFORMANCE: 12. Coordination failures and representation 13. Coordination failures and dominant parties 14. Coordination failures and realignments PART VI. CONCLUSION 15. Conclusion Appendices References Subject index Author index.

Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign

Abstract: "Voting" is an examination of the factors that make people vote the way they do. Based on the famous Elmira Study, carried out by a team of skilled social scientists during the 1948 presidential campaign, it shows how voting is affected by social class, religious background, family loyalties, on-the-job relationships, local pressure groups, mass communication media, and other factors. Still highly relevant, "Voting" is one of the most frequently cited books in the field of voting behavior.

Congressmen's voting decisions

Abstract: This classic study of voting decisions in the U.S. House of Representatives, based on extensive interviewing and observation, combines theory and substance, generalization and detailed description. With a new introduction, this influential and innovative book remains the best statement of the ways in which legislators reach decisions. The work contributes in critical ways to scholars' and students' understanding of such larger features of legislative process as representation of constituencies, the place of specialization in the making of public policy, the extent and types of legislative rationality, the importance of principles in decisions, and the place of legislatures in larger political systems.