Multiple Votes, Ballot Truncation and the Two-Party System: An Experiment

53 Pages Posted: 23 Sep 2008

See all articles by Arnaud Dellis

Arnaud Dellis

Universite du Quebec a Montreal

Sean T. D'Evelyn

University of Hawaii - Department of Economics

Katerina Sherstyuk

University of Hawaii - Department of Economics

Date Written: September 21, 2008

Abstract

Countries that elect their policy-makers by means of Plurality Voting tend to have a two-party system. We conduct laboratory experiments to study whether alternative voting procedures yield a two-party system as well. Plurality Voting is compared with Approval Voting and Dual Voting, both of which allow voters to vote for multiple candidates, but differ in whether voters are required to cast all their votes. We find that both Plurality and Approval Voting yield a two-party system, whereas Dual Voting may yield a multi-party system due to strategic voting. Voters' ability to truncate ballots (not cast all their votes) is essential for maintaining the two-party system under Approval Voting.

Keywords: Strategic voting, Approval Voting, Ballot truncation, Duverger's law

JEL Classification: C72, C9, D72

Suggested Citation

Dellis, Arnaud and D'Evelyn, Sean T. and Sherstyuk, Katerina, Multiple Votes, Ballot Truncation and the Two-Party System: An Experiment (September 21, 2008). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1271692 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1271692

Arnaud Dellis (Contact Author)

Universite du Quebec a Montreal ( email )

315 St. Catherine Street East
Montreal, Quebec H2X 3X2
Canada

HOME PAGE: http://sites.google.com/site/arnauddellis/

Sean T. D'Evelyn

University of Hawaii - Department of Economics ( email )

Honolulu, HI 96822
United States

Katerina Sherstyuk

University of Hawaii - Department of Economics ( email )

Honolulu, HI 96822
United States
808-956-7851 (Phone)

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