Which Voting Rule is Most Likely to Choose the 'Best' Candidate?

38 Pages Posted: 5 Oct 2011 Last revised: 20 Mar 2012

See all articles by T. Nicolaus Tideman

T. Nicolaus Tideman

Virginia Tech - Department of Economics

Florenz Plassmann

SUNY at Binghamton, Department of Economics

Date Written: March 19, 2012

Abstract

One criterion for evaluating voting rules is the frequency with which they select the best candidate. Using a spatial model of voting that is capable of simulating data with the same statistical structure as data from actual elections, we simulate elections for which we can define the best candidate. We use these simulated data to investigate the frequencies with which fourteen voting rules chose this candidate as their winner. We find that the Black rule tends to perform better than the other rules, especially in elections with few voters. The Bucklin rule, the plurality rule, and the anti-plurality rule tend to perform worse than the other eleven rules, especially in elections with many voters.

Keywords: spatial model, multinomial-Dirichlet distribution, the Black rule

JEL Classification: C4, D72

Suggested Citation

Tideman, T. Nicolaus and Plassmann, Florenz, Which Voting Rule is Most Likely to Choose the 'Best' Candidate? (March 19, 2012). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1939105 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1939105

T. Nicolaus Tideman

Virginia Tech - Department of Economics ( email )

3021 Pamplin Hall
Blacksburg, VA 24061
United States

Florenz Plassmann (Contact Author)

SUNY at Binghamton, Department of Economics ( email )

Binghamton, NY 13902-6000
United States
607-777-4304 (Phone)

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