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The average voter falls far short of the prescriptions of classic democratic theory in terms of interest, knowledge, and participation in politics. We suggest a more realistic standard: Citizens fulfill their democratic duties if, most of the time, they vote "correctly." Relying on an operationalization of correct voting based on fully informed interests, we present experimental data showing that, most of the time, people do indeed manage to vote correctly. We also show that voters' determinations of their correct vote choices can be predicted reasonably well with widely available survey data. We illustrate how this measure can be used to determine the proportion of the electorate voting correctly, which we calculate at about 75% for the five American presidential elections between 1972 and 1988. With a standard for correct vote decisions, political science can turn to exploring the factors that make it more likely that people will vote correctly.

Condcrcet's criterion states that an alternative that defeats every other by a simple majority is the socially optimal choice. Condorcet argued that if the object of voting is to determine the "best" decision for society but voters sometimes make mistakes in their judgments, then the majority alternative (if it exists) is statistically most likely to be the best choice. Strictly speaking, this claim is not true; in some situations Bordas rule gives a sharper estimate of the best alternative. Nevertheless, Condorcet did propose a novel and statistically correct rule for finding the most likely ranking of the alternatives. This procedure, which is sometimes known as "Kemeny's rule," is the unique social welfare function that satisfies a variant of independence of irrelevant alternatives together with several other standard properties.

AbstractIt is time to correct the ongoing injustice of the under‐representation of women in governing institutions at all levels, perpetrated by the strenuous promotion of single‐member districts. Without an appropriate remedy, the full promise of the 14th and 19th Amendments will not be realized.

An investigation of how US Supreme Court justices have decided whether to accept cases (certiorari voting) from a lower appeals court, covering seven US Supreme Court terms (the 1950/1952 Vinson Courts, 1963/1965/1967 Warren Courts, 1972/1974 Burger Courts), using data collected from the docket books of justices Harold Burton, Tom Clark, & William Brennen. Results show that the major decision-making strategies used were error correcting, prediction, & majority; ie, the justices voted to accept cases to: correct what they felt was an erroneous judgment on the appeals level; elevate an appeals decision to the national level, predicting that the judgment would be affirmed at the Supreme Court level; & vote with the majority. Interactions between these strategies are discussed, & the impact of conservative vs liberal orientation is considered. 3 Tables, 14 References. A. Cole

It is known that, in Condorcet's classical model of jury decisions, the proportion of jurors supporting a decision is not a significant indicator of that decision's reliability: the probability that a particular majority decision is correct given the size of the majority depends only on the absolute margin between the majority and the minority, and is invariant under changes of the proportion in the majority if the absolute margin is held fixed. Here I show that, if we relax the assumption that juror competence is independent of the jury's size, the proportion can be made significant: there are then conditions in which the probability that a given majority decision is correct depends only on the proportion of jurors supporting that decision, and is invariant under changes of the jury size. The proportion is significant in this way if and only if juror competence is a particular decreasing function of the jury size. However, the required condition on juror competence is not only highly special – thereby casting doubt on the significance of the proportion in realistic conditions – but it also has an adverse implication for the Condorcet jury theorem. If the proportion is significant, then the Condorcet jury theorem fails to hold; and if the Condorcet jury theorem holds, the proportion is not significant. I discuss the implications of these results for defining and justifying special majority voting from the perspective of an epistemic account of voting.

If we want to know what is happening to political parties today, the answer depends in part on how we define the term `party' and in part on the time frame used for analysis. In this paper we focus on parties as voting coalitions in the US House and the Senate over the last 40 years. To assess the ideological placement and cohesiveness of each party in the House and Senate, we use adjusted scores issued by the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA). Our adjustment corrects for changes in the ADA's scale from year to year. The analysis is carried out by focusing on each of the four main regional factions comprising the parties. The cross-chamber comparisons for the Republicans show a high degree of stability with respect to ideological placement and cohesiveness; eastern Republicans maintain a more liberal stance throughout the period of analysis. For Democrats in both chambers there has been a liberal shift in recent years and an increase in cohesiveness overall; the southern Democrats are distinctively more conservative than the rest of the party, although less so in recent years. Both of the `outlier' factions (eastern Republicans and southern Democrats) unexpectedly display less cohesiveness than do the mainline factions of their respective parties. The paper concludes with some discussion of why this may be the case, what the future holds for outlier cohesiveness, and implications for responsible parties in the United States.

There are two distinct views on how candidate (or party) issue strategies influence mass evaluations. One is the view underlying the classic spatial model that the proximity between the voter's own issue positions and the positions taken by the candidates drives the evaluation. The other view is directionally motivated. In the directional model voters are seen as having only diffuse preferences for one side or the other on an issue, with voter support and opposition stimulated by a candidate taking a strong stand in favor of a particular side. Researchers have long recognized that electorates are heterogeneous. We consider a model in which each of these two different views of issue-based voting is correct for a part of the electorate. We find that candidates trying to optimize support in this heterogeneous environment will generally adopt more extreme positions than those implied by proximity theory and more central positions than those implied by directional theory.

While multivariate analysis has proven valuable in answering factual questions regarding vote dilution, it has produced misleading results about racially polarized voting patterns when used by social scientists serving as expert witnesses for defendants in voting rights cases. The McCord v. City of Fort Lauderdale case is cited as an illustration of problems that arise from using multivariate methods to reach causal conclusions. (1) If there are many more white than black candidates, race cannot explain most of the variance because most of the contests are white vs white. (2) Race in the McCord example is the last variable in a multivariate regression equation with four other variables that are surrogates for race. (3) Factors that account for vote dispersion among individual white/black candidates may be irrelevant to the showing of blacks as a class. A hypothetical election in which voting is as racially polarized as possible is presented, & it is shown that black candidates do not win. (4) The problems are not exacerbated in multicandidate contests. In Misinformation and Misperceptions: A Little Knowledge Can Be Dangerous, Charles S. Bullock, III (U of Georgia, Athens) argues that the testimony & written report submitted to the court in McCord v. City of Fort Lauderdale were concerned with the question of minority vote dilution, not simply with the issue of racially polarized voting. Furthermore, the model discussed by Grofman was only one of three models used, & was used only to examine candidate success. Grofman's claim that race was collinear with four other predictors is refuted. It is acknowledged that minorities are more successful in multicandidate contests, & pointed out that Fort Lauderdale actually contended that situation in the case. In Straw Men and Stray Bullets: A Reply to Bullock, Grofman argues that multivariate analyses lead to a correct conclusion about the pressure of racial polarization sometimes, but for the wrong reasons. It is also argued that the key legal argument for why bivariate rather than multivariate analyses should be used is not addressed in the critique, & that Bullock's analysis does not determine whether blacks supported black candidates & whites did not. 1 Table, 9 References. Adapted from the source document.

Originally published: A correct copy of the poll, for electing two representatives in Parliament, for the city and liberty of Westminster, taken Oct. 11, 1774. London : Cox and Bigg, 1774. ; "Reproduced from an original in the Library of the Institute of Historical Research, University of London"--T.p. verso. ; Mode of access: Internet.

This article challenges the often-untested assumption that cognitive "heuristics" improve the decision-making abilities of everyday voters. The potential benefits & costs of five common political heuristics are discussed. A new dynamic process-tracing methodology is employed to directly observe the use of these five heuristics by voters in a mock presidential election campaign. We find that cognitive heuristics are at times employed by almost all voters & that they are particularly likely to be used when the choice situation facing voters is complex. A hypothesized interaction between political sophistication & heuristic use on the quality of decision making is obtained across several different experiments, however. As predicted, heuristic use generally increases the probability of a correct vote by political experts but decreases the probability of a correct vote by novices. A situation in which experts can be led astray by heuristic use is also illustrated. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for strategies to increase input from underrepresented groups into the political process. 5 Tables, 4 Figures, 80 References. Adapted from the source document.

Among the many lawsuits filed during the unprecedented California gubernatorial recall election, the one that garnered the most attention was the case challenging the use of punch card voting in six California counties. In that suit, plaintiffs argued that the election should be delayed because the allegedly higher error rates of punch card voting compared to other systems in California denied those voters in punch card counties their equal protection rights under the California constitution & also violated the Voting Rights Act. Professor Hasen argues that the original Ninth Circuit decision delaying the election until punch card voting could be eliminated was correct, & the later en banc decision allowing the election to go forward with the selective use of punch cards was unfortunate, though understandable given the closeness of the recall election. Hasen argues that under the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, the selective use of punch card voting constitutes an equal protection violation. The en banc court did not reach the issue. Hasen concludes that the en banc decision does not preclude other plaintiffs from bringing similar challenges in the future, & that the window remains open for voting reform lawsuits until the Supreme Court interprets Bush v. Gore otherwise. Adapted from the source document.