Voting Paradoxes and How to Deal with Them

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction

   • Hannu Nurmi

   Pages 1-3

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3. Basic Concepts and Tools

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   Pages 4-10

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4. Paradoxes of the Enlightenment Era

   • Hannu Nurmi

   Pages 11-30

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5. The Geometry of Voting

   • Hannu Nurmi

   Pages 31-40

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6. The Paradoxical Act of Voting

   • Hannu Nurmi

   Pages 41-54

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7. Monotonicity Paradoxes

   • Hannu Nurmi

   Pages 55-69

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8. Compound Majority Paradoxes

   • Hannu Nurmi

   Pages 70-86

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9. Intra-Profile Paradoxes

   • Hannu Nurmi

   Pages 87-108

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10. Paradoxes of Representation

    • Hannu Nurmi

    Pages 109-119

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11. Classification of Paradoxes

    • Hannu Nurmi

    Pages 120-124

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12. Hard and Soft Solutions

    • Hannu Nurmi

    Pages 125-127

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13. Back Matter

    Pages 129-153

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Voting paradoxes are unpleasant surprises encountered in voting. Typically they suggest that something is wrong with the way in­ dividual opinions are being expressed or processed in voting. The outcomes are bizarre, unfair or otherwise implausible, given the expressed opinions of voters. Voting paradoxes have an important role in the history of social choice theory. The founding fathers of the theory, Marquis de Condorcet and Jean-Charles de Borda, were keenly aware of some of them. Indeed, much of the work of these and other forerunners of the modern social choice theory dealt with ways of avoiding paradoxes related to voting. One of the early paradoxes, viz. that bearing the name of Condorcet, has subsequently gained such a prominent place in the literature that it is sometimes called the paradox of voting. One of the aims of the present work is to show that Condorcet's is but one of many paradoxes of voting. Some of these are pretty closely interrelated making it meaningful to classify them. This is the second main aim of this book. The third objective is to suggest ways of dealing with paradoxes. Since voting is and has always been an essential instrument of democratic rule, it is of some in­ terest to find out how voting paradoxes are being dealt with by past and present methods of voting. Of even greater interest is to find ways of minimizing the probability of occurrence of various paradoxes. By their very nature some paradoxes are unavoidable.

• Elections
• Electorial System
• Social Choice
• Voting
• Voting Paradox
• Voting Systems
• Wahlen
• Wahlparadoxon
• Wahlsystem
• Wahlverfahren
• election
• referendum
• voter

• Department of Political Science, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

  Hannu Nurmi

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