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Pivotal Voting

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  • Howard Margolis

Abstract

A voter only alters the outcome of an election if her/his vote is pivotal. A leading innovation of recent years in game theory applied to politics is Austen-Smith and Banks' analysis of pivotal voting, yielding a special form of strategic voting such that rational voters would vote against the side they favor if the decision were to be made by their vote alone. This note gives a non-mathematical version of the ASB argument, and explains why the result requires conditions which, in fact, are unlikely ever to be observed under actual conditions of social choice.

Suggested Citation

  • Howard Margolis, 2001. "Pivotal Voting," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 13(1), pages 111-116, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:13:y:2001:i:1:p:111-116
    DOI: 10.1177/0951692801013001007
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Feddersen, Timothy & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 1998. "Convicting the Innocent: The Inferiority of Unanimous Jury Verdicts under Strategic Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(1), pages 23-35, March.
    2. Austen-Smith, David & Banks, Jeffrey S., 1996. "Information Aggregation, Rationality, and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 90(1), pages 34-45, March.
    3. Feddersen, Timothy J. & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 1999. "Abstention in Elections with Asymmetric Information and Diverse Preferences," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(2), pages 381-398, June.
    4. Feddersen, Timothy J & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 1996. "The Swing Voter's Curse," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 408-424, June.
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    Keywords

    pivotal voting; strategic voting;

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