Electoral systems are complex entities composed of a set of phases that form a process to which performance parameters can be associated. One of the key points of every electoral system is represented by the electoral formula that can be characterized by a wide spectrum of properties that, according to Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem and other theoretical results, cannot be all satisfied at the s...

The old, understudied electoral system composed of multi-member districts, open ballot and plurality rule is presented as the most remote scene of the origin of both political parties and new electoral systems. A survey of the uses of this set of electoral rules in different parts of the world during remote and recent periods shows its wide spread. A model of voting by this electoral system dem...

The electoral models based on the early work of Hotelling (1929) and Downs (1957) essentially suppose that the motivation of parties is to win a majority of the votes or seats. A very considerable literature developed in the period up to 1973 (ably summarized by Riker and Ordeshook, 1973), focusing on two party competition and the existence of convergent equilibrium at the electoral median. McK...

Historically and contemporaneously, persons with disabilities have been excluded from exercising their human rights, including the right to political participation. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities responds to this circum­ stance and provides a holistic solution. Article 29 addresses the design and imple­ mentation of an electoral process that is non-discriminatory, ...

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN PYSCHOLOGICAL EVALUATIONS INELECTORAL RISK: FURTHERING THE EXPLANATION OF THEGENDER GAP IN CANDIDATE EMERGENCEbyJENNIE SWEET-CUSHMANMay 2014Advisor: Dr. Ewa GolebiowskaMajor: Political ScienceDegree: Doctor of PhilosophyDespite decades of movement towards gender parity in other aspects of American society(e.g. education, busi...

It has been a standard result of the stochastic, or probabilistic, spatial model of voting that vote maximizing candidates, or parties, will converge to the electoral mean (the origin). This conclusion has appeared to be contradicted by empirical studies. Here, a more general stochastic model, incorporating ‘exogeneous’ valence, is constructed. Contrary to the standard result, it is shown in Th...

The aim of the article is to evaluate coalition stability in multi-party systems with the use of the rough set theory. In this approach an information system including all members of a legislature with their votes is used, and coalitions are considered rough sets defined by their lower and upper approximations. Based on these approximations, three categories of coalitions according to their sta...

As the number of systems which offer annotations on digital documents increases, robust anchoring of annotations is a key challenge. It is especially important if the annotator lacks write-access to the document being annotated. For example, if someone makes an annotation on a web page today and the web page changes tomorrow, what happens to the annotation? One approach is simply to “orphan” th...

Building on the literature that investigates citizen and voter trust in government, we analyze the topic of voter confidence in the American electoral process. Our data comes from two national telephone surveys where voters were asked the confidence they have that their vote for president in the 2004 election was recorded as intended. We present preliminary evidence that suggests confidence in ...