Scoring rules, ballot truncation, and the truncation paradox

Eric Kamwa

Public Choice, 2022, vol. 192, issue 1, No 4, 79-97

Abstract: Abstract A voting rule that permits some voters to favor a candidate by revealing only the initial segment of their sincere rankings is said to be vulnerable to the truncation paradox. In this paper, we consider four models for counting truncated ballots, optimistic, pessimistic (the most common), averaged, and round-down. Under the impartial anonymous culture assumption, the choice of model generally has a real impact on truncation-paradox vulnerability, but exceptions exist. When the election is decided by a one-shot scoring rule, the optimistic model is invulnerable to the truncation paradox, but all other models are vulnerable. We identify new voting rules immune to the truncation paradox, such as the Modified Borda Count. To obtain a more complete picture of the impact of processing model, we assess the likelihood of the truncation paradox in three-candidate elections with large electorates, focusing not only on one-shot scoring rules but also scoring rules with one-by-one or below-average elimination. Our assessment confirms that the processing model for truncated ballots may really matter.

Keywords: Truncation; Rankings; Scoring model; Probability; Paradox; Impartial and anonymous culture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D71 D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11127-022-00972-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Scoring Rules, Ballot Truncation, and the Truncation Paradox (2022)
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:kap:pubcho:v:192:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s11127-022-00972-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11127/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11127-022-00972-8

Access Statistics for this article

Public Choice is currently edited by WIlliam F. Shughart II

More articles in Public Choice from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().