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Which Voting Rules Elicit Informative Voting?

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  • Ruth Ben-Yashar

    (Department of Economics, Bar Ilan University)

  • Igal Milchtaich

    (Department of Economics, Bar Ilan University)

Abstract

When a group of people with identical preferences but different abilities in identifying the best alternative (e.g., a jury) takes a vote to decide between two alternatives, the question of strategic voting arises. That is, depending on the voting rule used to determine the collective decision, it may or may not be rational for group members to always vote for the alternative believe to be their private information indicates is better (i.e., vote informatively). In fact, we show in this paper that, if a qualified majority rule is used, then informative voting is rational only if the rule is optimal in the class of all qualified majority rules, in the sense the sense that, when everybody votes informatively, none of the other rules in this class would yield a higher expected utility. However, this necessary condition is not sufficient for informative voting to be rational. Specifically, even if the qualified majority rule used is optimal in the above sense, some of those who are least competent in correctly identifying the better alternative may increase the expected utility by sometimes voting for the alternative they believe to be inferior. A sufficient (but not necessary) condition for informative, non-strategic, voting to be rational is that the voting rule is optimal among the class of all qualified weighted majority rules, i.e., rules assigning (potentially) unequal weights to different individuals, this cannot happen: informative, non-strategic voting is rational.

Suggested Citation

  • Ruth Ben-Yashar & Igal Milchtaich, 2002. "Which Voting Rules Elicit Informative Voting?," Working Papers 2002-13, Bar-Ilan University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:biu:wpaper:2002-13
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. 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.
    2. Ruth Ben-Yashar & Sarit Kraus, 2002. "Optimal collective dichotomous choice under quota constraints," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 19(4), pages 839-852.
    3. Ben-Yashar, Ruth & Khuller, Samir & Kraus, Sarit, 2001. "Optimal collective dichotomous choice under partial order constraints," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 349-364, May.
    4. Ben-Yashar, Ruth & Nitzan, Shmuel, 1998. "Quality and structure of organizational decision-making," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 521-534, September.
    5. Ben-Yashar, Ruth C & Nitzan, Shmuel I, 1997. "The Optimal Decision Rule for Fixed-Size Committees in Dichotomous Choice Situations: The General Result," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 38(1), pages 175-186, February.
    6. Ruth Ben-Yashar & Jacob Paroush, 2001. "Optimal decision rules for fixed-size committees in polychotomous choice situations," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 18(4), pages 737-746.
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