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Voting rules and election outcomes: When does the true majority win?

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Abstract

Majority-in-unit (MIU) and method of majority decision (MMD) voting rules are investigated to determine their impact on the outcome of union elections. A theoretical foundation is established to explain why voters may rationally choose not to vote in these settings. Numerical simulations are employed to compute the probability that the population majority wins the election. The results for these two methods are compared to see which one is most likely to award the election to the true population majority.

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Fain, J.R., Dworkin, J.B. Voting rules and election outcomes: When does the true majority win?. Journal of Labor Research 12, 247–260 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02685462

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