Banzhaf voting power, random elections, and the Electoral College winner’s advantage

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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261379411001028

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2011.08.003
 http://hdl.handle.net/11603/21167

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2011-09-05

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journal articles postprints
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Nicholas R.Miller, Banzhaf voting power, random elections, and the Electoral College winner’s advantage, Electoral Studies Volume 30, Issue 4, December 2011, Pages 829-833, DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2011.08.003

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© 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Abstract

In a recent article, Riggs et al. (2009) aim to measure the ‘Electoral College winner's advantage’—in particular, the extent to which the winner’s electoral vote margin of victory is magnified as a result of (i) the ‘two electoral vote add-on’ given to each state and (ii) the ‘winner-take-all’ mode of casting state electoral votes. Their results are based on two sets of one million simulated two-candidate elections. This note has two purposes. The first is to demonstrate that RHR’s simulation estimates can be calculated precisely using the theory of voting power measurement. The second is to correct several flaws in RHR’s analysis, the most substantial of which pertains to the effect of the two electoral vote add-on, which actually has a negative effect on the winner’s advantage.