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Could the Florida Election Disaster have been Avoided by Competition Among Polling Stations?

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Abstract

We study a model of competition among polling stations wherepolling stations have to invest in counting precision toattract voters. The benchmark is the (current) monopolisticcase in which there is no incentive to provide particularlygood counting technologies. Unsurprisingly, we find thatcompetition enhances precision when compared to a monopoly.The somewhat surprising part of our result is that the optimalnumber of polling stations is two.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University College London and the Economist Intelligence Unit, UK

    Heike Harmgart

  2. Department of Economics & ELSE, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, U.K.

    Steffen Huck

Authors
  1. Heike Harmgart
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  2. Steffen Huck
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Harmgart, H., Huck, S. Could the Florida Election Disaster have been Avoided by Competition Among Polling Stations?. Public Choice 115, 477–484 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024217715598

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024217715598

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