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The Borda count in n-dimensional issue space

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Abstract

We provide a natural extension of the Borda count to the n-dimensional spatial context, an algorithm to find the spatial Borda winner based on the notion of an inverse Borda count, the result that the Borda winner and the Condorcet winner coincide in unidimensional space when all alternatives on a line are feasible, results that show that in multi-dimensional space the Borda winner and the Condorcet winner (except under very implausible circumstances) will be distinct, and some results on the manipulability of outcomes under the Borda rule as a function of the domain of alternatives over which the Borda count is to be defined.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, State University of New York, Stony Brook

    Scott L. Feld

  2. School of Social Sciences, University of California, 92717, Irvine, CA

    Bernard Grofman

Authors
  1. Scott L. Feld
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  2. Bernard Grofman
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Additional information

The listing of authors is alphabetical. We are indebted to the staff of the Word Processing Center, School of Social Sciences, UCI, for typing, to Cheryl Larsson for preparation of figures, to Dorothy Gormick for bibliographic assistance, and to three anonymous referees for helpful suggestions. This research was supported by NSF Grant SES #85-06376, Decision and Management Sciences Program, to the second-named author.

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Feld, S.L., Grofman, B. The Borda count in n-dimensional issue space. Public Choice 59, 167–176 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00054452

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