Some Properties of Hare Voting with Strategic Voters

Abstract

"This essay examines some properties of the Single Transferable Vote (Hare Voting) procedure for electing candidates in multi-member districts under the assumption that all voters are strategic. From the perspective of the most common criterion for evaluating voting procedures — the extent to which they ensure the eventual selection of Condorcet winning candidates — the results we offer in this essay can be interpreted as indictments of STV. Even if we restrict preferences by imposing conditions on attitudes towards risk and assume a strong form of separability, STV is not necessarily incentive compatible and strategic voting does not ensure the selection of Condorcet winning candidates or of Condorcet outcomes. This fact, moreover is not dependent on the existence of 'bogus' equilibria — outcomes that exclude Condorcet candidates cannot be avoided under all circumstances even if we limit our analysis to strong or to individually stable equilibria."