Miscounts, Duverger's Law and Duverger's Hypothesis

Matthias Messner and Mattias K Polborn

No 380, Working Papers from IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University

Abstract: In real-life elections, vote-counting is often imperfect. We analyze the consequences of such imperfections in plurality and runoff rule voting games. We call a strategy profile a robust equilibrium if it is an equilibrium if the probability of a miscount is positive but small. All robust equilibria of plurality voting games satisfy Duverger's Law: In any robust equilibrium, exactly two candidates receive a positive number of votes. Moreover, robust- ness (only) rules out a victory of the Condorcet loser. All robust equilibria under runoff rule satisfy Duverger's Hypothesis: First round votes vare (almost always) dispersed over more than two alternatives. Robustness has strong implications for equilibrium outcomes under runoff rule: For large parts of the parameter space, the robust equilibrium outcome is unique.

Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-gth and nep-pol
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