A characterization result for approval voting with a variable set of alternatives

Norihisa Sato ()

Social Choice and Welfare, 2014, vol. 43, issue 4, 809-825

Abstract: In this paper, we present a new result for axiomatic characterization of approval voting. Having defined a model in which the actual set of alternatives becomes known only after a vote has been taken, we characterize approval voting as the only voting procedure (to be precise, “family of ballot aggregation functions”) that satisfies faithfulness ( F), consistency ( C), stability on selected alternatives ( SSA), and independence of dropped alternatives ( IDA). SSA, which is a version of the property introduced by Arrow (Economica 16:121–127, 1959 ), states that if the actual set of alternatives is smaller than the original set, we should select those alternatives, if any, that would have been selected on the first vote and that are still feasible. On the other hand, IDA suggests that we should select alternatives based on the outcome of the second vote. Therefore, given F and C, approval voting is the only voting procedure that selects the same set of alternatives irrespective of which vote counts, that is, the first or second vote. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1007/s00355-014-0811-1

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