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A live experiment on approval voting

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Abstract

This paper presents a large-scale experiment on the Approval Voting rule that took place during the 2002 French presidential election. We describe the experiment and its main results. The findings are as follows: (i) Such an experiment is feasible, and very well accepted by voters. (ii) The principle of approval voting is easily understood and accepted. (iii) Within the observed political context, compared to the official first-round vote, approval voting modifies the overall ranking of candidates. (iv) The candidates Le Pen and Chirac, more than the others, were able to convert approval votes into official first-round votes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CNRS, Ecole Polytechnique, 1 Rue Descartes, 75005, Paris, France

    Jean-François Laslier

Authors
  1. Jean-François Laslier
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  2. Karine Van der Straeten
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Correspondence to Jean-François Laslier.

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JEL Classification C93, D70, D72

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Laslier, JF., Van der Straeten, K. A live experiment on approval voting. Exp Econ 11, 97–105 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-006-9149-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-006-9149-6

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