The paradox of multiple elections

Assume that voters must choose between voting yes (Y) and voting no (N) on three propositions on a referendum. If the winning combination is NYY on the first, second, and third propositions, respectively, the paradox of multiple elections is that NYY can receive the fewest votes of the 2³ = 8 combinations. Several variants of this paradox are illustrated, and necessary and sufficient conditions for its occurrence, related to the “incoherence” of support, are given. The paradox is shown, via an isomorphism, to be a generalization of the well-known paradox of voting. One real-life example of the paradox involving voting on propositions in California, in which not a single voter voted on the winning side of all the propositions, is given. Several empirical examples of variants of the paradox that manifested themselves in federal elections – one of which led to divided government – and legislative votes in the US House of Representatives, are also analyzed. Possible normative implications of the paradox, such as allowing voters to vote directly for combinations using approval voting or the Borda count, are discussed. Received: 31 July 1996 / Accepted: 1 October 1996     

The Bicameral Postulates and Indices of a Priori Voting Power

If K is an index of relative voting power for simple voting games, the bicameral postulate requires that the distribution of K -power within a voting assembly, as measured by the ratios of the powers of the voters, be independent of whether the assembly is viewed as a separate legislature or as one chamber of a bicameral system, provided that there are no voters common to both chambers. We argue that a reasonable index – if it is to be used as a tool for analysing abstract, uninhabited decision rules – should satisfy this postulate. We show that, among known indices, only the Banzhaf measure does so. Moreover, the Shapley–Shubik, Deegan–Packel and Johnston indices sometimes witness a reversal under these circumstances, with voter x less powerful than y when measured in the simple voting game G₁ , but more powerful than y when G₁ is bicamerally joined with a second chamber G₂ . Thus these three indices violate a weaker, and correspondingly more compelling, form of the bicameral postulate. It is also shown that these indices are not always co-monotonic with the Banzhaf index and that as a result they infringe another intuitively plausible condition – the price monotonicity condition. We discuss implications of these findings, in light of recent work showing that only the Shapley–Shubik index, among known measures, satisfies another compelling principle known as the bloc postulate. We also propose a distinction between two separate aspects of voting power: power as share in a fixed purse (P-power) and power as influence (I-power).     

Monotonicity properties and their adaptation to irresolute social choice rules

What is a monotonicity property? How should such a property be recast, so as to apply to voting rules that allow ties in the outcome? Our original interest was in the second question, as applied to six related properties for voting rules: monotonicity, participation, one-way monotonicity, half-way monotonicity, Maskin monotonicity, and strategy-proofness. This question has been considered for some of these properties: by Peleg and Barberà for monotonicity, by Moulin and Pérez et?al, for participation, and by many authors for strategy-proofness. Our approach, however, is comparative; we examine the behavior of all six properties, under three general methods for handling ties: applying a set extension principle (in particular, G?rdenfors’ sure-thing principle), using a tie-breaking agenda to break ties, and rephrasing properties via the “t-a-t” approach, so that only two alternatives are considered at a time. In attempting to explain the patterns of similarities and differences we discovered, we found ourselves obliged to confront the issue of what it is, exactly, that identifies these properties as a class. We propose a distinction between two such classes: the “tame” monotonicity properties (which include participation, half-way monotonicity, and strategy proofness) and the strictly broader class of “normal” monotonicity properties (which include monotonicity and one-way monotonicity, but not Maskin monotonicity). We explain why the tie-breaking agenda, t-a-t, and G?rdenfors methods are equivalent for tame monotonicities, and how, for properties that are normal but not tame, set-extension methods can fail to be equivalent to the other two (and may fail to make sense at all).     

Disability Considerations for Measuring Poverty in Canada Using the Market Basket Measure

Social Indicators Research - Persons with disability (PWD) in Canada experience disproportionately high poverty rates. Poverty measures are often used to benchmark income assistance levels and...     

Which Scoring Rule Maximizes Condorcet Efficiency Under Iac?

Consider an election in which each of the n voters casts a vote consisting of a strict preference ranking of the three candidates A, B, and C. In the limit as n→∞, which scoring rule maximizes, under the assumption of Impartial Anonymous Culture (uniform probability distribution over profiles), the probability that the Condorcet candidate wins the election, given that a Condorcet candidate exists? We produce an analytic solution, which is not the Borda Count. Our result agrees with recent numerical results from two independent studies, and contradicts a published result of Van Newenhizen (Economic Theory 2, 69–83. (1992)).     

Two applications of a theorem of Dvoretsky, Wald, and Wolfovitz to cake division

In this note, we show that a partition of a cake is Pareto optimal if and only if it maximizes some convex combination of the measures used by those who receive the resulting pieces of cake. Also, given any sequence of positive real numbers that sum to one (which may be thought of as representing the players' relative entitlements), we show that there exists a partition in which each player receives either more than, less than, or exactly his or her entitlement (according to his or her measure), in any desired combination, provided that the measures are not all equal.