Vote Trading With and Without Party Leaders

Abstract

Two groups of voters of known sizes disagree over a single binary decision to be taken by simple majority. Individuals have different, privately observed intensities of preferences and before voting can buy or sell votes among themselves for money. We study the implication of such trading for outcomes and welfare when trades are coordinated by the two group leaders and when they take place anonymously in a competitive market. The theory has strong predictions. In both cases, trading falls short of full efficiency, but for opposite reasons: with group leaders, the minority wins too rarely; with market trades, the minority wins too often. As a result, with group leaders, vote trading improves over no-trade; with market trades, vote trading can be welfare reducing. All predictions are strongly supported by experimental results.

Democracy undone. Systematic minority advantage in competitive vote markets

“…The equilibrium exists whether G = m or G = M , and, because µ(n) < 1 for all n, the equilibrium exists whether the two highest value voters are on opposite sides or on the same side, as long as v g ≥ µ(n)v (2)G . The price p and the mixing probabilities, q G and q g , depend on v G , 14 Throughout the paper, we use v i to denote the value of i but also occasionally, with abuse of notation, the name of voter i. We use the notation v (1) to indicate the highest draw, as opposed to the more standard v (n) , for consistency with v (2)G .…”