Strategic Voting and Coalitions

Abstract

We examine strategic elements of voter behavior in parliamentary elections where the voting method is a scoring rule other than plurality: the Borda count, which is used for the election of ethnic minorities in Slovenia, and the Dowdall rule, which is used in the Pacific island state of Nauru in multiseat districts. After first examining the general properties of scoring rules, and generating theoretical differences between the two rules, we look at empirical evidence from Nauru and Slovenia. This casts doubt on predictions based simply on a voting rule’s mathematical properties and on the accuracy of assumptions of sincere rank ordering.