Individuals in a committee or election can increase their voting power by forming coalitions. This behavior is shown here to yield a prisoner's dilemma, in which a subset of voters can increase their power, while reducing average voting power for the electorate as a whole. This is an unusual...

Abstract The paper shows that corruption at the federal level may be contagious for regional governments suggesting that federal structure of the government may be one of the reasons for persistence of corruption. The analysis reveals that well-informed voters may rationally forego their chance...

A number of incremental electoral reforms have not measurably improved government performance in California. In this research note, we simulate and map electoral outcomes under a simple form of proportional representation: 16 five-seat districts for the 80-seat California Assembly. In addition...

During the 2008 presidential election in California 5,722,465 voters voted by mail, representing 41.64% of all registered voters in the state. Given the historic number of mail ballots and the increasing propensity for voters in California and elsewhere to choose this voting method, some basic...