The Probability of Conflicts in a U.S. Presidential Type Election

Vincent Merlin (), Jean-Lous Rouet, Marc Feix and Dominique Lepelley
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Jean-Lous Rouet: MAPMO - Mathématiques - Analyse, Probabilités, Modélisation - Orléans - UO - Université d'Orléans - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Marc Feix: MAPMO - Mathématiques - Analyse, Probabilités, Modélisation - Orléans - UO - Université d'Orléans - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: In a two candidate election, it might be that a candidatewins in a majority of districts while he gets less vote thanhis opponent in the whole country. In Social Choice Theory, this situation is known asthe compound majority paradox, or the referendum paradox.Although occurrences of such paradoxical results have been observed worldwide in political elections(e.g. United States, United Kingdom, France),no study evaluates theoretically the likelihood of such situations.In this paper, we propose four probability models in order to tackle this issue, forthe case where each district has the same population.For a divided electorate, our resultsprove that the likelihood of this paradox rapidly tends to 20% when the numberof districts increases.This probability decreases with the number of states when a candidate receivessignificatively more vote than his opponent over the whole country.

Keywords: voting; paradox; US presidential election; probability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in Economic Theory, 2004, 23, pp.227-257. ⟨10.1007/s00199-003-0375-2⟩

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Related works:
Journal Article: The probability of conflicts in a U.S. presidential type election (2004)
Working Paper: The Probability of Conflicts in a US Presidential Type Election (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00083476

DOI: 10.1007/s00199-003-0375-2

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