Minority Turnout and Representation under Cumulative Voting. An Experiment. / Alessandra Casella, Jeffrey Guo, Michelle Jiang.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Casella, Alessandra.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Guo, Jeffrey.

Jiang, Michelle.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w28674.

NBER working paper series no. w28674

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2021.

Summary:

Under majoritarian election systems, securing participation and representation of minorities remains an open problem, made salient in the US by its history of voter suppression. One remedy recommended by the courts is Cumulative Voting (CV): each voter has as many votes as open positions and can cumulate votes on as few candidates as desired. Theory predicts that CV encourages the minority to overcome obstacles to voting: although each voter is treated equally, CV increases minority's turnout relative to the majority, and the minority's share of seats won. A lab experiment based on a costly voting design strongly supports both predictions.

Notes:

Print version record

April 2021.