An assessment of voting systems under the proximity and directional models of the vote

Abstract

I evaluate five single-winner voting systems according to their tendency to elect Condorcet candidates under alternative models of issue voting derived from behavioral research. These behavioral models posit that voters have both issue and nonissue motivations; within this framework, I study the effects of both the directional and proximity voting models, with varying degrees of issue voting. Under the proximity metric, all voting systems are most efficient when voters attach little importance to issues, while the opposite is generally the case under directional voting. In contrast to previous results, voting systems tend to be more efficient for large than for small electorates. All voting systems – including the widely-criticized plurality method – are extremely efficient when voters in mass elections are inattentive to issues.