IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/halshs-03162184.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Voter coordination in elections : a case for approval voting

Author

Listed:
  • François Durand

    (Nokia Bell Labs, LINCS - Laboratory of Information, Network and Communication Sciences - Inria - Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - SU - Sorbonne Université)

  • Antonin Macé

    (PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres)

  • Matias Nunez

    (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

We study how voting rules shape voter coordination in large three-candidate elections. We consider three rules, that differ on the number of candidates that voters can support: Plurality (one), Anti-Plurality (two) and Approval Voting (one or two). We show that the Condorcet winner is always elected at some equilibrium under Approval Voting, and that this rule provides better welfare guarantees than Plurality. We then numerically study a dynamic process of political tâtonnement which delivers rich insights. The Condorcet winner is virtually always elected under Approval Voting, but not under the other rules. The dominance of Approval Voting is robust to several alternative welfare criteria and the introduction of expressive voters.

Suggested Citation

  • François Durand & Antonin Macé & Matias Nunez, 2023. "Voter coordination in elections : a case for approval voting," Working Papers halshs-03162184, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03162184
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03162184v2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03162184v2/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bol, Damien & Blais, André & Coulombe, Maxime & Laslier, Jean-François & Pilet, Jean-Benoit, 2020. "Choosing an Electoral Rule," SocArXiv rm2tq, Center for Open Science.
    2. Ahn, David S. & Oliveros, Santiago, 2016. "Approval voting and scoring rules with common values," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 304-310.
    3. Laurent Bouton & Micael Castanheira, 2012. "One Person, Many Votes: Divided Majority and Information Aggregation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(1), pages 43-87, January.
    4. Tilman Börgers & Yan-Min Choo, 2017. "Revealed Relative Utilitarianism," CESifo Working Paper Series 6613, CESifo.
    5. Laurent Bouton, 2013. "A Theory of Strategic Voting in Runoff Elections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1248-1288, June.
    6. repec:ulb:ulbeco:2013/162238 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Abdelhalim El Ouafdi & Dominique Lepelley & Jérôme Serais & Hatem Smaoui, 2022. "Comparing the manipulability of approval, evaluative and plurality voting with trichotomous preferences," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 2(8), pages 1-22, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tsakas, Nikolas & Xefteris, Dimitrios, 2021. "Information aggregation with runoff voting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    2. Tsakas, Nikolas & Xefteris, Dimitrios, 2021. "Stress-testing the runoff rule in the laboratory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 18-38.
    3. Bouton, Laurent & Castanheira, Micael & Llorente-Saguer, Aniol, 2016. "Divided majority and information aggregation: Theory and experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 114-128.
    4. Bouton, Laurent & Castanheira, Micael & Llorente-Saguer, Aniol, 2016. "Divided majority and information aggregation: Theory and experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 114-128.
    5. Núñez, Matías & Laslier, Jean-François, 2015. "Bargaining through Approval," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 63-73.
    6. François Durand & Antonin Macé & Matias Nunez, 2019. "Analysis of Approval Voting in Poisson Games," Working Papers halshs-02049865, HAL.
    7. Costel Andonie & Daniel Diermeier, 2022. "Electoral Institutions with impressionable voters," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 59(3), pages 683-733, October.
    8. Bouton, Laurent & Castanheira, Micael & Llorente-Saguer, Aniol, 2017. "Multicandidate elections: Aggregate uncertainty in the laboratory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 132-150.
    9. Laurent Bouton & Micael Castanheira, 2012. "One Person, Many Votes: Divided Majority and Information Aggregation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(1), pages 43-87, January.
    10. Sebastien Courtin & Matias Nunez, 2013. "A Map of Approval Voting Equilibria Outcomes," Working Papers hal-00914887, HAL.
    11. François Maniquet & Massimo Morelli, 2015. "Approval quorums dominate participation quorums," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 45(1), pages 1-27, June.
    12. Herrera, Helios & Llorente-Saguer, Aniol & McMurray, Joseph C., 2019. "Information aggregation and turnout in proportional representation: A laboratory experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    13. Francesco De Sinopoli & Claudia Meroni, 2019. "Poisson voting games: proportional rule," Working Papers 11/2019, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    14. Verdier, Thierry & Seror, Avner, 2018. "Multi-candidate Political Competition and the Industrial Organization of Politics," CEPR Discussion Papers 13121, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Laurent Bouton & Aniol Llorente-Saguer & Antonin Macé & Dimitrios Xefteris, 2021. "Voting Rights, Agenda Control and Information Aggregation," NBER Working Papers 29005, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Martin Gregor, 2013. "The Optimal Ballot Structure for Double-Member Districts," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp493, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    17. Meroni, Claudia & Pimienta, Carlos, 2017. "The structure of Nash equilibria in Poisson games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 128-144.
    18. Francesco Sinopoli & Christopher Künstler & Claudia Meroni & Carlos Pimienta, 2023. "Poisson–Cournot games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(3), pages 803-840, April.
      • Francesco De Sinopoli & Christopher Kunstler & Claudia Meroni & Carlos Pimienta, 2020. "Poisson-Cournot Games," Discussion Papers 2020-07, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    19. Hughes, Niall, 2016. "Voting in legislative elections under plurality rule," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 51-93.
    20. Laurent Bouton & Aniol Llorente-Saguer & Frédéric Malherbe, 2014. "Get Rid of Unanimity: The Superiority of Majority Rule with Veto Power," NBER Working Papers 20417, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Approval voting; Poisson games; Strategic voting; Condorcet consistency; Fictitious play; Expressive voting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03162184. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.