IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/halshs-00926969.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The geometry of voting power: weighted voting and hyper-ellipsoids

Author

Listed:
  • Nicolas Houy

    (GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon - Saint-Etienne - ENS de Lyon - École normale supérieure de Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université de Lyon - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • William S. Zwicker

    (Union College - Union College)

Abstract

Suppose legislators represent districts of varying population, and their assembly's voting rule is intended to implement the principle of one person, one vote. How should legislators' voting weights appropriately reflect these population differences? An analysis requires an understanding of the relationship between voting weight and some measure of the influence that each legislator has over collective decisions. We provide three new characterizations of weighted voting that embody this relationship. Each is based on the intuition that winning coalitions should be close to one another. The locally minimal and tightly packed characterizations use a weighted Hamming metric. Ellipsoidal separability employs the Euclidean metric: a separating hyper-ellipsoid contains all winning coalitions, and omits losing ones. The ellipsoid's proportions, and the Hamming weights, reflect the ratio of voting weight to influence, measured as Penrose Banzhaf voting power. In particular, the spherically separable rules are those for which voting powers can serve as voting weights.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicolas Houy & William S. Zwicker, 2014. "The geometry of voting power: weighted voting and hyper-ellipsoids," Post-Print halshs-00926969, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00926969
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2013.12.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Taylor, Alan & Zwicker, William, 1997. "Interval measures of power," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 23-74, February.
    2. Lindner, Ines & Machover, Moshe, 2004. "L.S. Penrose's limit theorem: proof of some special cases," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 37-49, January.
    3. Moshé Machover & Dan S. Felsenthal, 2001. "The Treaty of Nice and qualified majority voting," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 18(3), pages 431-464.
    4. Dan Felsenthal & Moshé Machover, 2005. "Voting power measurement: a story of misreinvention," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 25(2), pages 485-506, December.
    5. Chang, Pao-Li & Chua, Vincent C.H. & Machover, Moshe, 2006. "L S Penrose's limit theorem: Tests by simulation," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 90-106, January.
    6. Pierre Barthelemy, Jean & Monjardet, Bernard, 1981. "The median procedure in cluster analysis and social choice theory," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 235-267, May.
    7. Lindner, Ines & Owen, Guillermo, 2007. "Cases where the Penrose limit theorem does not hold," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 232-238, May.
    8. EINY, Ezra & LEHRER, Ehud, 1989. "Regular simple games," LIDAM Reprints CORE 850, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    9. Einy, Ezra & Lehrer, Ehud, 1989. "Regular Simple Games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 18(2), pages 195-207.
    10. Laruelle, Annick & Widgren, Mika, 1998. "Is the Allocation of Voting Power among EU States Fair?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 94(3-4), pages 317-339, March.
    11. Laruelle,Annick & Valenciano,Federico, 2011. "Voting and Collective Decision-Making," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521182638.
    12. Johnston, R. J., 1995. "The Conflict over Qualified Majority Voting in the European Union Council of Ministers: An Analysis of the UK Negotiating Stance Using Power Indices," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 245-254, April.
    13. Hosli, Madeleine O., 1993. "Admission of European Free Trade Association states to the European Community: effects on voting power in the European Community Council of Ministers," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(4), pages 629-643, October.
    14. Dan S. Felsenthal & Moshé Machover, 1998. "The Measurement of Voting Power," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1489.
    15. Pradeep Dubey & Lloyd S. Shapley, 1979. "Mathematical Properties of the Banzhaf Power Index," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 4(2), pages 99-131, May.
    16. Shapley, L. S. & Shubik, Martin, 1954. "A Method for Evaluating the Distribution of Power in a Committee System," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(3), pages 787-792, September.
    17. Gvozdeva, Tatiana & Slinko, Arkadii, 2011. "Weighted and roughly weighted simple games," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 20-30, January.
    18. Cervone, Davide P. & Dai, Ronghua & Gnoutcheff, Daniel & Lanterman, Grant & Mackenzie, Andrew & Morse, Ari & Srivastava, Nikhil & Zwicker, William S., 2012. "Voting with rubber bands, weights, and strings," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 11-27.
    19. Leech, Dennis, 2002. "Designing the Voting System for the Council of the European Union," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 113(3-4), pages 437-464, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Serguei Kaniovski & Sascha Kurz, 2018. "Representation-compatible power indices," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 264(1), pages 235-265, May.
    2. Kurz, Sascha & Mayer, Alexander & Napel, Stefan, 2020. "Weighted committee games," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 282(3), pages 972-979.
    3. Artyom Jelnov & Yair Tauman, 2014. "Voting power and proportional representation of voters," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 43(4), pages 747-766, November.
    4. Bertrand Mbama Engoulou & Lawrence Diffo Lambo, 2019. "Amplitude of weighted representation of voting games with several levels of approval," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 48(4), pages 1111-1137, December.
    5. Sam Jones, 2022. "Extending multidimensional poverty identification: from additive weights to minimal bundles," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(2), pages 421-438, June.
    6. Josep Freixas & Marc Freixas & Sascha Kurz, 2017. "On the characterization of weighted simple games," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 83(4), pages 469-498, December.
    7. Sascha Kurz & Nicola Maaser & Stefan Napel & Matthias Weber, 2014. "Mostly Sunny: A Forecast of Tomorrow's Power Index Research," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 14-058/I, Tinbergen Institute.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Le Breton, Michel & Lepelley, Dominique & Macé, Antonin & Merlin, Vincent, 2017. "Le mécanisme optimal de vote au sein du conseil des représentants d’un système fédéral," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 93(1-2), pages 203-248, Mars-Juin.
    2. Sascha Kurz & Stefan Napel, 2014. "Heuristic and exact solutions to the inverse power index problem for small voting bodies," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 215(1), pages 137-163, April.
    3. Sascha Kurz, 2016. "The inverse problem for power distributions in committees," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(1), pages 65-88, June.
    4. Zaporozhets, Vera, 2015. "Power Distribution in French River Basin Committees," TSE Working Papers 15-558, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    5. Kurz, Sascha & Maaser, Nicola & Napel, Stefan, 2018. "Fair representation and a linear Shapley rule," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 152-161.
    6. Dennis Leech, 2013. "Power indices in large voting bodies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 61-79, April.
    7. Artyom Jelnov & Yair Tauman, 2014. "Voting power and proportional representation of voters," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 43(4), pages 747-766, November.
    8. Ines Lindner, 2012. "Annick Laruelle and Federico Valenciano: Voting and collective decision-making," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 38(1), pages 161-179, January.
    9. Annick Laruelle & Ricardo Martınez & Federico Valenciano, 2006. "Success Versus Decisiveness," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 18(2), pages 185-205, April.
    10. Le Breton, Michel & Montero, Maria & Zaporozhets, Vera, 2012. "Voting power in the EU council of ministers and fair decision making in distributive politics," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 159-173.
    11. Stefan Napel & Mika Widgrén, 2011. "Strategic versus non-strategic voting power in the EU Council of Ministers: the consultation procedure," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 37(3), pages 511-541, September.
    12. Matthias Weber, 2014. "Choosing Voting Systems behind the Veil of Ignorance: A Two-Tier Voting Experiment," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 14-042/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    13. Boratyn, Daria & Kirsch, Werner & Słomczyński, Wojciech & Stolicki, Dariusz & Życzkowski, Karol, 2020. "Average weights and power in weighted voting games," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 90-99.
    14. Federico Valenciano & Annick Laruelle & Ricardo Martínez, 2004. "Success Versus Decisiveness: Conceptual Discussion And Case Study," Working Papers. Serie AD 2004-30, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    15. Michel Le Breton & Dominique Lepelley, 2014. "Une analyse de la loi électorale du 29 juin 1820," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 65(3), pages 469-518.
    16. de Mouzon, Olivier & Laurent, Thibault & Le Breton, Michel & Moyouwou, Issofa, 2020. "“One Man, One Vote” Part 1: Electoral Justice in the U.S. Electoral College: Banzhaf and Shapley/Shubik versus May," TSE Working Papers 20-1074, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    17. Yener Kandogan, 2003. "DEMOCRACY???S SPREAD: Elections and Sovereign Debt in Developing Countries," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2003-576, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    18. Le Breton, Michel & Montero, Maria & Zaporozhets, Vera, 2012. "Voting power in the EU council of ministers and fair decision making in distributive politics," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 159-173.
    19. Fabrice Barthelemy & Mathieu Martin, 2011. "A Comparison Between the Methods of Apportionment Using Power Indices: the Case of the US Presidential Elections," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 101-102, pages 87-106.
    20. Fabrice Barthelemy & Mathieu Martin & Bertrand Tchantcho, 2011. "Some conjectures on the two main power indices," THEMA Working Papers 2011-14, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    weighted voting; voting power; simple games; ellipsoidal separability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00926969. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.