[EM] three papers

[Jeffrey O'Neill]

I didn't realize that you had to join the SSRN site to download the
papers.  You can also download the papers here"
http://jeff.oneill.googlepages.com/home

Jeff

On 2/25/06, Jeffrey O'Neill <jco8 at cornell.edu> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have three papers that may be of interest to members of this list.
> I would appreciate any comments, and please send them to me off list.
> PDF's can be downloaded from http://ssrn.com/author=367415 and
> abstracts are listed below.
>
> best regards,
> Jeff O'Neill
>
>
> (1) When a Plurality is Good Enough, submitted to Public Choice
>
> This paper investigates when a runoff election is desirable and when a
> plurality result is good enough. A runoff election increases the
> likelihood that the Condorcet winner will be elected but also entails
> additional costs. The metric for determining whether a runoff election
> is desirable will be the probability that the winner of the plurality
> election would win an ensuing runoff. Models of voter behavior are
> developed that estimate this probability, which are verified with
> runoff-election data from United States elections. The models allow
> governments to make more informed choices in creating rules to decide
> when to hold runoff elections.
>
> (2) Fast Algorithms for Counting Ranked Ballots, to appear in Voting Matters.
>
>  With a number of voting systems, voters cast ballots by ranking the
> candidates in order of preference. Voting systems that used ranked
> ballots - e.g., the single transferable vote and Condorcet methods -
> have theoretical advantages over simpler voting systems that do not
> use ranked ballots, but are computationally more intensive. This
> article shows that, by organinizing ballots into a tree data
> structure, the computations can be decreased dramatically. For
> example, with different versions of the single transferable vote, the
> compuatation times will be decreased ten to twenty fold.
>
> (3) Everything that can be Counted Does not Necessarily Count: The
> Right to Vote and the Choice of a Voting System, to appear in the
> Michigan State Law Review
>
>  This article investigates how the choice of a voting system impacts
> the right to vote. It presents the first comprehensive summary of the
> usage of alternative voting systems in the United States and also the
> first comprehensive summary of the caselaw on voting systems. Two
> aspects of the right to vote are considered: the right to an equally
> effective vote and the right to a reliable electoral outcome. The
> right to an equally effective of vote is considered as a
> generalization and unification of disparate but related rights. The
> only voting system that clearly violates this right is at-large
> voting. Commentators have previously criticized the discriminatory
> effects of at-large voting, but not in the last twenty years. This
> article takes a fresh look at the legal viability of at-large voting
> in light of the Supreme Court's more recent jurisprudence. The right
> to a reliable electoral outcome is a heretofore undefined but
> eminently reasonable right. If nothing else, the outcome of an
> election must be meaningful in some sense. From a survey of the
> Supreme Court's election law jurisprudence, notably the Anderson
> balancing test, a middle-level review or reasonableness test is
> proposed to regulate the right to a reliable outcome. This article
> then applies this right to several voting systems, shows when they
> would violate this right, and suggests possible remedies.
>