Strategizing under Rule and Vote Uncertainty: An Experiment

Antoine Prévotat (), Zoi Terzopoulou () and Adam Zylbersztejn ()
Additional contact information
Antoine Prévotat: Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne, Université Lyon 2, Emlyon Business School, GATE, 42100, Saint-Etienne, France
Zoi Terzopoulou: CNRS, Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne, Université Lyon 2, Emlyon Business School, GATE, 42100, Saint-Etienne, France
Adam Zylbersztejn: Université Lyon 2, Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne, Emlyon Business School, GATE, CNRS, 69007, Lyon, France; research fellow at Vistula University Warsaw (AFiBV), Warsaw, Poland

No 2603, Working Papers from Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Etienne (GATE Lyon St-Etienne), Université de Lyon

Abstract: In a controlled laboratory experiment, we examine voting behavior under rule uncertainty, i.e., uncertainty about the voting rule itself. We compare behavior under three voting-rule conditions: simple plurality (1R), plurality with runoff (2R), and their probabilistic mixture (1R/2R) that is a lottery generating either 1R with known probability p, or 2R with probability 1-p. Following the previous literature, we conjecture that 1R/2R raises computational complexity and thus mitigates strategic manipulation. We test different models – either heuristic-based or rational – of (i) the formation of beliefs about other voters’ behavior, and of (ii) the resulting voting decisions. We find that beliefs tend to be formed in a myopic manner in all experimental conditions. With repetition, however, the accuracy of the belief formation process improves and we observe convergence between beliefs and votes. Regarding voting decisions, the model with highest (resp., lowest) predictive power is strategic (resp., sincere) voting, with some variation across conditions. Overall, our initial conjecture is not supported by the experimental data. Rule uncertainty steers the voters neither towards sincerity nor towards any other voting heuristic. If anything, it contributes to promoting strategic behavior.

Keywords: Rule uncertainty; strategic voting; sincere voting; heuristics; plurality; plurality with runoff; economic experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 C72 C91 C92 D72 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-pol
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.gate.cnrs.fr/RePEc/2026/2603.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gat:wpaper:2603

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Etienne (GATE Lyon St-Etienne), Université de Lyon Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Béatrice HENRY ().