IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tkk/dpaper/dp15.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Assessing Borda's Rule and Its Modifications

Author

Listed:
  • Hannu Nurmi

    (Department of Political Science, University of Turku)

Abstract

The Borda Count (BC) is a positional voting procedure fairly often applied in nonpolitical choice settings. It has a usual mixture of good and bad theoretical properties. It is monotonic and consistent and excludes the election of an eventual Condorcet loser. It, however, does not necessarily choose the Condorcet winner when one exists. Its strategic properties have also been found unattractive. Some modifications to it have therefore been proposed, notably Nanson's method. We also compare the BC with two of its recent modifications, the modified Borda Count (MBC) and the quota Borda system (QBS). It turns out that, although similar in spirit to BC, MBC and QBS do not share one of the former's main justifications: the exclusion of an eventual Condorcet loser. It is also shown that QBS tends to lead to more majoritarian outcomes than BC.

Suggested Citation

  • Hannu Nurmi, 2007. "Assessing Borda's Rule and Its Modifications," Discussion Papers 15, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:tkk:dpaper:dp15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ace-economics.fi/kuvat/ACE15%20valmis.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baharad, Eyal & Nitzan, Shmuel, 2002. "Ameliorating Majority Decisiveness through Expression of Preference Intensity," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 96(4), pages 745-754, December.
    2. Donald Saari, 2006. "Which is better: the Condorcet or Borda winner?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 26(1), pages 107-129, January.
    3. Steven J. Brams & William S. Zwicker & D. Marc Kilgour, 1998. "The paradox of multiple elections," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 15(2), pages 211-236.
    4. Hannu Nurmi, 1998. "Rational Behaviour and the Design of Institutions," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1487.
    5. Mathias Risse, 2005. "Why the count de Borda cannot beat the Marquis de Condorcet," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 25(1), pages 95-113, October.
    6. Fishburn, Peter C., 1974. "Paradoxes of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(2), pages 537-546, June.
    7. Young, H. P., 1974. "An axiomatization of Borda's rule," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 43-52, September.
    8. Gardenfors, Peter, 1976. "Manipulation of social choice functions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 217-228, October.
    9. Brams, Steven J. & Kilgour, D. Marc & Zwicker, William, 1997. "Voting on Referenda: The Separability Problem and Possible Solutions," Working Papers 97-15, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
    10. Moulin, Herve, 1988. "Condorcet's principle implies the no show paradox," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 53-64, June.
    11. I. D. Hill, 1988. "Some Aspects of Elections — to Fill One Seat or Many," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 151(2), pages 243-261, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Eyal Baharad & Shmuel Nitzan, 2016. "Is majority consistency possible?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(2), pages 287-299, February.
    2. Hannu Nurmi & Hannu Salonen, 2008. "More Borda Count Variations for Project Assesment," Czech Economic Review, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, vol. 2(2), pages 109-122, September.
    3. Joaquín Pérez & José L. Jimeno & Estefanía García, 2015. "No Show Paradox and the Golden Number in Generalized Condorcet Voting Methods," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 497-513, May.
    4. Asaf D. M. Nitzan & Shmuel I. Nitzan, 2024. "Balancing democracy: majoritarianism versus expression of preference intensity," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 200(1), pages 149-171, July.
    5. Jonathan Hodge & Peter Schwallier, 2006. "How Does Separability Affect The Desirability Of Referendum Election Outcomes?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 251-276, November.
    6. Núñez, Matías & Sanver, M. Remzi, 2017. "Revisiting the connection between the no-show paradox and monotonicity," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 9-17.
    7. Hannu Salonen, 2014. "Aggregating and Updating Information," Czech Economic Review, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, vol. 8(2), pages 55-67, October.
    8. Conal Duddy & Ashley Piggins & William Zwicker, 2016. "Aggregation of binary evaluations: a Borda-like approach," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(2), pages 301-333, February.
    9. Jean-François Laslier & Karine Straeten, 2016. "Strategic voting in multi-winner elections with approval balloting: a theory for large electorates," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(3), pages 559-587, October.
    10. Truchon, Michel, 2008. "Borda and the maximum likelihood approach to vote aggregation," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 96-102, January.
    11. Brandl, Florian & Peters, Dominik, 2022. "Approval voting under dichotomous preferences: A catalogue of characterizations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    12. Eyal Baharad & Leif Danziger, 2018. "Voting in Hiring Committees: Which "Almost" Rule is Optimal?," CESifo Working Paper Series 6851, CESifo.
    13. Baharad, Eyal & Danziger, Leif, 2018. "Voting in Hiring Committees: Which "Almost" Rule Is Optimal?," IZA Discussion Papers 11287, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Dietrich, Franz & List, Christian, 2007. "Strategy-Proof Judgment Aggregation," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(3), pages 269-300, November.
    15. Hanna Bury & Dariusz Wagner, 2009. "Group judgement with ties. A position-based approach," Operations Research and Decisions, Wroclaw University of Technology, Institute of Organization and Management, vol. 4, pages 9-26.
    16. Bradley, W. James & Hodge, Jonathan K. & Kilgour, D. Marc, 2005. "Separable discrete preferences," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 335-353, May.
    17. Hannu Nurmi, 2004. "Monotonicity and its Cognates in the Theory of Choice," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(1), pages 25-49, October.
    18. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-01304688 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Aleksei Y. Kondratev & Alexander S. Nesterov, 2020. "Measuring majority power and veto power of voting rules," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 183(1), pages 187-210, April.
    20. Francesco Sinopoli & Claudia Meroni, 2018. "A concept of sincerity for combinatorial voting," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 51(3), pages 493-512, October.
    21. Tuğçe Çuhadaroğlu & Jean Lainé, 2012. "Pareto efficiency in multiple referendum," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 72(4), pages 525-536, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Borda Count; NansonÕs method; Condorcet winner; Condorcet loser; monotonicity; consistency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

    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:tkk:dpaper:dp15. 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: Susmita Baulia (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tukkkfi.html .

    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.