Hausladen, C.I. orcid.org/0000-0003-4397-2339, Hänggli Fricker, R., Helbing, D. et al. (3 more authors) (2024) How voting rules impact legitimacy. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11. 689.
Abstract
Collective action is essential for addressing the grand challenges of our time. However, for such action to be successful, decision-making processes must be perceived as legitimate. In this study, we investigate the legitimacy of different voting methods. Using a pre-registered human subject experiment, 120 participants cast their votes using four voting methods: majority voting, combined approval voting, range voting, and the modified Borda count. These methods represent a range of preference elicitation designs, from low to high complexity and flexibility. Furthermore, we developed a legitimacy scale upon which the participants rate the voting methods. The experiment was conducted in a non-political setting (voting on color preferences) and a political context (voting on COVID-19-related questions). Our findings suggest that the perceived legitimacy of a voting method is context-dependent. Specifically, preferential voting methods are seen as more legitimate than majority voting in a political decision-making situation, but only for individuals with well-defined preferences. Furthermore, preferential voting methods are more legitimate than majority voting in a highly polarized situation.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2024. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Computing (Leeds) > Distributed Systems & Services |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number MRC (Medical Research Council) MR/W009560/1 Swiss National Science Foundation Not Known |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 19 Jun 2024 13:42 |
Last Modified: | 19 Jun 2024 13:42 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Nature |
Identification Number: | 10.1057/s41599-024-03056-8 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:213651 |