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Evaluative voting or classical voting rules: Does it make a difference? Empirical evidence for consensus among voting rules

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  • Darmann, Andreas
  • Grundner, Julia
  • Klamler, Christian

Abstract

We provide empirical evidence for Tullock's claim (Tullock (1967, 1981)) that many of the problems known from social choice literature do not show up in practice. In particular, even though theoretically the use of different voting rules can lead to very different outcomes, there appears to be rather high consensus among voting rules when applied to real-world preference data. In addition, the famous and widely studied problem of majority cycles seems to be of little significance in practice. In this study, based on data collected in an online-survey in connection with the 2015 parliament election in the Austrian federal state of Styria, we confirm these findings to a high degree. Our analysis is based on an approach using a nonparametric bootstrap and includes various forms of evaluative voting (which has recently received increasing attention).

Suggested Citation

  • Darmann, Andreas & Grundner, Julia & Klamler, Christian, 2019. "Evaluative voting or classical voting rules: Does it make a difference? Empirical evidence for consensus among voting rules," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 345-353.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:59:y:2019:i:c:p:345-353
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2019.04.003
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    Cited by:

    1. David McCune & Erin Martin & Grant Latina & Kaitlyn Simms, 2023. "A Comparison of Sequential Ranked-Choice Voting and Single Transferable Vote," Papers 2306.17341, arXiv.org.
    2. Andreas Darmann & Christian Klamler, 2023. "Does the rule matter? A comparison of preference elicitation methods and voting rules based on data from an Austrian regional parliamentary election in 2019," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 197(1), pages 63-87, October.
    3. Adam Graham-Squire & David McCune, 2023. "An Examination of Ranked Choice Voting in the United States, 2004-2022," Papers 2301.12075, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2023.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Evaluative voting; Condorcet; Voting rules; Empirical study; Austrian election;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments

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