Two-tier voting: Measuring inequality and specifying the inverse power problem
Journal
Mathematical Social Sciences
ISSN
0165-4896
Type
journal-article
Date Issued
2015-11-12
Author(s)
Abstract
There are many situations in which different groups make collective decisions by committee voting, with
each group represented by a single person. This paper is about two closely related problems. The first
is that of how to measure the inequality of a voting system in such a setting. The second is the inverse
power problem: the problem of finding voting systems that approximate equal indirect voting power
as well as possible. I argue that the coefficient of variation is appropriate to measure the inequality of a
voting system and to specify the inverse problem. I then show how specifying the inverse problem with
the coefficient of variation compares to using existing objective functions.
each group represented by a single person. This paper is about two closely related problems. The first
is that of how to measure the inequality of a voting system in such a setting. The second is the inverse
power problem: the problem of finding voting systems that approximate equal indirect voting power
as well as possible. I argue that the coefficient of variation is appropriate to measure the inequality of a
voting system and to specify the inverse problem. I then show how specifying the inverse problem with
the coefficient of variation compares to using existing objective functions.
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Volume
79
Start page
40
End page
45
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
open.access
Name
top tier voting.pdf
Size
372.05 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
9da29ae80bca4a239cd0d76415d0b065