Strategic Vote Timing in Online Elections With Public Tallies
CoRR(2024)
摘要
We study the effect of public tallies on online elections, in a setting where
voting is costly and voters are allowed to strategically time their votes. The
strategic importance of choosing when to vote arises when votes are
public, such as in online event scheduling polls (e. g., Doodle), or in
blockchain governance mechanisms. In particular, there is a tension between
voting early to influence future votes and waiting to observe interim results
and avoid voting costs if the outcome has already been decided.
Our study draws on empirical findings showing that “temporal” bandwagon
effects occur when interim results are revealed to the electorate: late voters
are more likely to vote for leading candidates. To capture this phenomenon, we
analyze a novel model where the electorate consists of informed voters who have
a preferred candidate, and uninformed swing voters who can be swayed according
to the interim outcome at the time of voting. In our main results, we prove the
existence of equilibria where both early and late voting occur with a positive
probability, and we characterize conditions that lead to the appearance of
“last minute” voting behavior, where all informed voters vote late.
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