Limited resoluteness and strategic voting: The case of linear sincere preference orderings (Q796424)

This paper is concerned with manipulability of group decision functions, which for every situation specify a set of alternatives as the decision. For such decision functions the strategic behaviour of the individuals is crucially dependent on the criterion used for comparing different subsets of alternatives. Several such criteria are discussed. The investigation is restricted to the case where individual preferences are strict (linear). Several theorems concerning the manipulability of group decision functions are proved, using different sets of more or less standard conditions. One of these conditions is that the decision function be resolute, i.e. that it selects exactly one alternative in every voting situation. The theorems show that the resoluteness of a function is a critical factor for manipulability, as long as individuals adopt some version of the sure-thing principle in comparing different subsets of alternatives.