OR Forum---Blotto Politics

Alan Washburn ()
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Alan Washburn: Operations Research Department, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California 93943

Operations Research, 2013, vol. 61, issue 3, 532-543

Abstract: This paper considers abstract election games motivated by the United States Electoral College. There are two political parties, and the electoral votes in each state go to the party that spends the most money there, with an adjustment for a “head start” that one party or the other may have in that state. The states have unequal numbers of electoral votes, and elections are decided by majority rules. Each party has a known budget, and much depends on the information that informs how that budget is spent. Three situations are considered: (1) one party's spending plan is known to the other, (2) spending is gradually revealed as the parties spend continuously in time, and (3) neither side knows anything about the other's spending. The last situation resembles a Blotto game, hence the title.

Keywords: political campaign spending; Blotto; presidential; game theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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