In this paper we analyze the consequences of the fairness recommendation of the Venice Commission in allocating voting districts among larger administrative regions. This recommendation requires the size of any constituency not to differ from the average constituency size by more than a fixed...

Experiments evaluate the fit of human behaviour to the Shapley-Shubik power index (SSPI), a formula of voter power. Groups of six subjects with differing votes divide a fixed purse by majority rule in online chat rooms. Earnings proxy for measured power. Chat rooms and processes for selecting...

The Condorcet Jury Theorem states that given subjective expected utility maximization and common values, the equilibrium probability that the correct candidate wins goes to one as the size of the electorate goes to infinity. This paper studies strategic voting when voters have pure common values...

This paper studies the advantages that a coalition of agents obtains by forming a voting bloc to pool their votes and cast them all together. We identify the necessary and sufficient conditions for an agent to benefit from the formation of the voting bloc, both if the agent is a member of the...

When making collektive desicions, principals (voters or districts) typically benefit by strategically delegating their bargaining and voting power to representatives different from themselves. There are conflicting views in the literature, however, of whether such a delegate should be...

The political blessings of federalism are the core of our discussion. These benefits are operationalized as the decrease in the number of outvoted in a federal system with majority voting as an important source of regime satisfaction. The approach originates from the work of Roland Pennock who...

Fair representation of voters in a committee representing different voters’ groups is being broadly discussed during last few years. Assuming we know what the fair representation is, there exists a problem of optimal quota: given a fairʺ distribution of voting weights, how to set up voting...

The author proposes a two-round process called minority voting to allocate public projects in a polity. In the first round, a society decides by a simple majority decision whether to provide the public project. If the proposal in the first round is rejected, the process ends. Otherwise the...

In this paper we analyze a legislative bargaining game in which parties privately informed about their preferences bargain over an ideological and a distributive decision. Communication takes place before a proposal is offered and majority rule voting determines the outcome. When the private...