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Abstract

Voting is used to decide who controls power at various levels of government. Hence elected officials and individuals aspiring to hold public offices are concerned about voters’ choices. Researchers have developed mathematical models of the relation between voter’ choices and certain decisions that politicians make when there is an election. The material, which follows, discusses models (of this relation) developed in the public choice literature on elections. The first part of the entry sets out a general model. Then the entry discusses two important special cases, which are called “deterministic” and “probabilistic” voting models. These models are illustrated with two specific examples.

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© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Coughlin, P.J. (2004). Election Models. In: Rowley, C.K., Schneider, F. (eds) The Encyclopedia of Public Choice. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-306-47828-4_88

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-306-47828-4_88

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-8607-0

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