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The Empirical Frequency of a Pivotal Vote

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  • Mulligan, Casey B
  • Hunter, Charles G

Abstract

Some economic theories of voting suggest that competition leads to close elections, and that election closeness is a factor for bringing voters to the polls. How often in fact are civic elections decided by one vote? One of every 89,000 votes cast in U.S. Congressional elections, and one of 15,000 in state legislator elections, "mattered" in the sense that they were cast for a candidate that tied or won by one vote. We find an inverse relationship between election size and the frequency of one vote margins. Recounts, and other margin-specific election procedures, are determinants of the pivotal vote frequency. Copyright 2003 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Springer in its journal Public Choice.

Volume (Year): 116 (2003)
Issue (Month): 1-2 (July)
Pages: 31-54
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Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:116:y:2003:i:1-2:p:31-54

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References

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  1. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote & Jose A. Scheinkman, 1995. "Crime and Social Interactions," NBER Working Papers 5026, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Timothy J. Feddersen & Wolfgang Pesendorfer, 1995. "The Swing Voter's Curse," Discussion Papers 1064, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
  3. Chamberlain, Gary & Rothschild, Michael, 1981. "A note on the probability of casting a decisive vote," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 152-162, August.
  4. Fischer, A J, 1999. " The Probability of Being Decisive," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 101(3-4), pages 267-83, December.
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Cited by:
  1. John Maloney & Andrew Pickering, 2008. "Ideology, Competence and Luck: What determines general election results?," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 08/607, Department of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
  2. Darren Grant & Michael Toma, . "Elemental Tests of the Traditional Rational Voting Model," Working Papers 0709, Sam Houston State University, Department of Economics and International Business.
  3. Ozgur Evren, 2009. "Altruism, Turnout and Strategic Voting Behavior," Levine's Working Paper Archive 814577000000000309, David K. Levine.
  4. Andrew Gelman & Nate Silver & Aaron Edlin, 2009. "What is the probability your vote will make a difference?," NBER Working Papers 15220, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Aaron Edlin & Andrew Gelman & Noah Kaplan, 2007. "Voting as a Rational Choice: Why and How People Vote to Improve the Well-Being of Others," NBER Working Papers 13562, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. Eric Crampton & Andrew Farrant, 2004. "Expressive and Instrumental Voting: The Scylla and Charybdis of Constitutional Political Economy," Public Economics 0401002, EconWPA.

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