On Pendular Voting

We present Pendular Voting as a novel two-stage voting procedure with applications to direct and representative democracies. A randomly chosen citizen group first votes on a proposal replacing the status quo. Depending on the outcome, a “counterproposal†ensues, positioned closer to or further away from the status quo than the original proposal. All citizens then vote pairwise on the status quo, the initial proposal, and the counterproposal, with the middle alternative prevailing in the case of cyclical collective preferences. We analyze the process on a one-dimensional policy space under uncertainty about preference distribution, showing that manipulation is confined to the first stage, but does not affect the final outcome. Even with selfish agenda setters, Pendular Voting can deliver results closer to the median voter’s preferences than standard procedures. In parliamentary contexts, pairing bills with structured counterproposals could shift outcomes toward the chamber’s median preference while reducing agenda manipulation.