Dear List,

I have two papers on voting systems (IRV, cumulative voting, etc.)
that may be interesting to members of the list.  The first is a law
review style article that will appear in the Michigan State Law
Review.  The second is related to the first, but of a much more
technical nature, and has been submitted to the Public Choice Journal.
 I would appreciate comments off list.  PDFs are available from my
SSRN page: http://ssrn.com/author=367415.

best regards,
Jeff O'Neill


(1) 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.

(2) 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.