Storable votes : protecting the minority voice / Alessandra Casella.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 333-337) and index.

I The Idea -- 1. The Simple Logic of Storable Votes -- 2. Storing Votes over Time -- 3. Protecting Minorities without Sacrificing Efficiency -- 4. Agenda Control -- 5. Storable Votes in Large Elections: Referenda -- 6. A Field Test of Storable Votes in Large Elections -- 7. Conclusions -- II The Proofs -- 1. The Simple Logic of Storable Votes -- 2. Storing Votes over Time -- 3. Protecting Minorities without Sacrificing Efficiency -- 4. Agenda Control -- 5. Storable Votes in Large Elections: Referenda -- 6. A Field Test of Storable Votes in Large Elections.

This book discusses a simple voting scheme that allows the minority to win occasionally, while treating every voter equally. Because the minority wins only when it cares strongly about a decision while the majority does not, minority victories occur without large costs and indeed typically with gains for the community as a whole. The idea is simple: consider a group of voters faced with a series of proposals, each of which can either pass or fail. Decisions are taken according to the majority of votes cast, but each voter is endowed with a total budget of votes to spend freely over the multiple decisions. Because voters will choose to cast more votes on decisions that matter to them most, they reveal the intensity of their preferences, and increase their probability of winning exactly when it matters to them most. Thus storable votes elicit and reward voters' intensity of preferences without the need for any external knowledge of voters' preferences.