Election Inversions by the U.S. Electoral College

Thumbnail Image

Files

INVERSIONS&EC.ES.NRM.pdf (1.16 MB)

Links to Files

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-20441-8_4

Permanent Link

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20441-8_4
 http://hdl.handle.net/11603/20962

Collections

UMBC Political Science
UMBC Faculty Collection

Author/Creator

Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2011-10-28

Type of Work

book chapters
postprints
Text

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Miller, Nicholas R.; Election Inversions by the U.S. Electoral College; In: Felsenthal D., Machover M. (eds) Electoral Systems. Studies in Choice and Welfare (2012); https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-20441-8_4

Rights

This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.

Subjects

Abstract

An election inversion occurs when the candidate (or party) that wins the most votes from an electorate fails to win the most electoral votes (or parliamentary seats) and therefore loses the election. Public commentary commonly uses terms such as “reversal of winners,” “wrong winner,” “divided verdict,” and “misfire” to describe this phenomenon; the academic social choice literature adds such terms as “repre- sentative inconsistency,” “compound majority paradox,” “referendum paradox,” and “majority deficit.” Election inversions can occur under any two-tier electoral system, including the U.S. Electoral College. As is well known, the Electoral College actually produced a “wrong winner” in the 2000 Presidential election, and it has done so twice before.