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I develop an electoral mechanism called "Random Candidate Elections" (RCEs) under both discrete and continuous settings. Candidates (or policies) are randomly selected from a population and voted upon according to a simple spatial model. I find that the win-maximizing positions are dependent on the number of candidates involved, as well as the electoral regime utilized. Results from simulation back these findings.

This paper analyzes factors that affect candidates' position-taking incentives in multi-candidate and multi-party elections. Following Cox (1990), we define centrifugal incentives as those that motivate vote-seeking candidates to take more extreme positions relative to the center of the voter distribution. For a multivariate vote model that includes a Left-Right policy component, a party identification component and an unmeasured term that renders the vote choice probabilistic, we present theoretical and computer simulation results that quantify candidates' incentives to shift their policies away from the center in the direction of their partisan constituencies' mean policy preferences. Centrifugal incentives are found to increase with (1) the salience of policies and party identification, (2) the size of the candidate field, (3) the size of a candidate's partisan constituency and (4) more extreme constituency policy preferences. Thus, ceteris paribus, candidates who represent large constituencies are motivated to present more extreme policies than are candidates who represent small ones.

This paper examines the incentives facing candidates in two candidate elections. In particular, we provide a set of sufficient conditions for the optimal strategies of vote-maximizing, plurality-maximizing, & probability-of-victory-maximizing candidates to be identical. In addition, we examine & provide counterexamples to two oft-cited results due to Hinich (1977) & Ledyard (1984) regarding the equivalence of these objectives in large two candidate elections. 1 Appendix, 12 References. Adapted from the source document.

How do voters make decisions in low-information elections? How distinctive are these voting decisions? Traditional approaches to the study of voting and elections often fail to address these questions by ignoring other elections taking place simultaneously. In this groundbreaking book, Stephen Nicholson shows how issue agendas shaped by state ballot propositions prime voting decisions for presidential, gubernatorial, Senate, House, and state legislative races. As a readily accessible source of information, the issues raised by ballot propositions may have a spillover effect on elections and ultimately define the meaning of myriad contests. Nicholson examines issues that appear on the ballot alongside candidates in the form of direct legislation. Found in all fifty states, but most abundant in those states that feature citizen-initiated ballot propositions, direct legislation represents a large and growing source of agenda issues. Looking at direct legislation issues such as abortion, taxes, environmental regulation, the nuclear freeze, illegal immigration, and affirmative action, Nicholson finds that these topics shaped voters' choices of candidates even if the issues were not featured in a particular contest or were not relevant to the job responsibilities of a particular office. He concludes that the agendas established by ballot propositions have a far greater effect in priming voters than is commonly recognized, and indeed, that the strategic use of initiatives and referenda by political elites potentially thwarts the will of the people