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Anonymous yes-no voting with abstention and multiple levels of approval

Josep Freixas and William S. Zwicker

Games and Economic Behavior, 2009, vol. 67, issue 2, 428-444

Abstract: Symmetric (3,2) simple games serve as models for anonymous voting systems in which each voter may vote "yes," abstain, or vote "no," the outcome is "yes" or "no," and all voters play interchangeable roles. The extension to symmetric (j,2) simple games, in which each voter chooses from among j ordered levels of approval, also models some natural decision rules, such as pass-fail grading systems. Each such game is determined by the set of (anonymous) minimal winning profiles. This makes it possible to count the possible systems, and the counts suggest some interesting patterns. In the (3,2) case, the approach yields a version of May's Theorem, classifying all possible anonymous voting rules with abstention in terms of quota functions. In contrast to the situation for ordinary simple games these results reveal that the class of simple games with 3 or more levels of approval remains large and varied, even after the imposition of symmetry.

Keywords: Anonymity Abstention Games with several levels of approval (j; k) games Absolute and simple strict majority rule Grading systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (41)

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