Penrose Voting System and Optimal Quota
Year: 2006
Type: preprint
Abstract: Institute of Physics, Jagellonian UniversityReymonta 4, 30-059 Krakow, PolandandCenter for Theoretical Physics, Polish Academy of SciencesAl. Lotnikow 32/46, 02-668 Warszawa, Poland(Received August 16, 2006)Systems of indirect voting based on the principle of quali˝ed majoritycan be analysed using the methods of game theory. In particular, thisapplies to the voting system in the Council of the European Union, whichwas recently a subject of a vivid political discussion. The a priori votingpower of a voter measures his potential in˛uence over the decisions of thevoting body under a given decision rule. We investigate a system based onthe law of Penrose, in which each representativein the voting body receivesthe number of votes (the voting weight) proportional to the square root ofthe population he or she represents. Here we demonstrate that for a genericdistribution of the population there exists an optimal quota for which thevoting power of any state is proportional to its weight. The optimal quotais shown to decrease with the number of voting countries.PACS numbers: 02.50.Le, 89.65.s
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Author: S Wojciech
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2593166110