Voter Discernment and Candidate Entry in Pluralitarian Election

Roger Congleton and Bernard Steunenberg

Public Choice, 1998, vol. 95, issue 3-4, 287-305

Abstract: This paper develops a sequential model of candidate entry into elections decided on the basis of plurality. The authors analyze the kinds of candidates who are most likely to enter elections and simulate several plausible myopic entry sequences under various assumptions about voter abilities to discern differences in candidate positions. In the cases examined, open elections for 'important' positions attract the entry of more than two candidates. Moreover, myopic entry often generates electoral outcomes which depart from the median-mean outcomes of the conventional models. These results are consistent with the observed diversity of candidates in presidential and other significant primary elections, which contrasts with many previous analyses of electoral entry. Copyright 1998 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Date: 1998
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