Voting Procedures Under Uncertainty

by Nurmi, Hannu

• ISBN13: 9783540433521
• ISBN10: 354043352X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-08-01
• Publisher: Springer Nature

Summary

This book deals with how uncertainty can be dealt with in models of voting procedures. Using the recent U.S. presidential elections as an example, it demonstrates the extremely large variation in voter opinions that would have resulted in the same observed outcome. Another case discussed to some extent is the vote in German Bundestag that resulted in the transfer of government and parliament from Bonn to Berlin. Also this vote as well as the 2001 British parliamentary elections exhibit a high degree of procedure dependence of outcomes. It turns out that differences in voting outcomes can be explained by differences in the description of consensus states and ways in measuring preferences distances.

Table of Contents

Choice Theory and Constitutional Design	1	(12)
Theories and Models	2	(2)
Applying Social Choice Theory	4	(4)
Varying Assumptions	8	(5)
Chaotic Behavior of Models	13	(16)
The U.S. Presidential Elections	13	(3)
Referendum Paradox and the Properties of Majority Rule	16	(6)
How Chaotic Can It Get?	22	(7)
Results Based on Standard Model	29	(16)
Voting Procedures	29	(6)
Performance Criteria	35	(2)
Chaos, Strategy and Self Correction	37	(8)
Aggregating Voting Probabilities and Judgments	45	(20)
Avoiding Arrow's Theorem via Average Rule	45	(4)
Condorcet's Jury Theorem	49	(4)
Relaxing the Independence Assumption	53	(3)
Optimal Jury Decision Making	56	(3)
Thought Experiment: Council of Ministers as a Jury	59	(6)
Condorcet's Rule and Preference Proximity	65	(26)
Condorcet's Rule	65	(6)
Measuring Preference Similarity	71	(4)
Preference Proximity and Other Desiderata	75	(4)
Ranking and Choice Rules	79	(4)
Kemeny, Dodgson and Slater	83	(8)
Responses to Changes in Voter Opinions	91	(26)
Monotonicity, Maskin-Monotonicity and No-Show Paradox	92	(4)
The Strong No-Show Paradox	96	(2)
Qualified Majorities and No-Show Paradox	98	(2)
Monotonicity Violations of Voting Systems	100	(5)
Preference Truncation Paradox	105	(5)
Preference Misrepresentation	110	(7)
Mos Docendi Geometricus	117	(18)
The British Parliamentary Elections of 2001	117	(6)
Critique of Condorcet's Intuition	123	(3)
Profile Decomposition	126	(6)
Berlin vs. Bonn Vote Revisited	132	(3)
Conclusions	135	(4)
List of Figures	139	(2)
List of Tables	141	(2)
Bibliography	143	(6)
Author Index	149	(4)
Subject Index	153