A modified "winner-take-all" rule for awarding state electoral votes in US presidential elections and a game model for its analysis

  • Authors:

  • A. S. Belenky

  • Affiliations:

  • NISTRAMAN Consulting, P.O.Box 1314, Brookline, MA 02446, USA and Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals, Engineering Systems Division, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts ...

  • Venue:
  • Mathematical and Computer Modelling: An International Journal
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

A modification of the ''winner-take-all'' rule for awarding state electoral votes in US presidential elections is proposed. The modified rule has the potential of turning a state that is currently ''safe'' for either major party candidate into a ''battleground'' one, forcing presidential candidates to compete in the state and encouraging state voters (interested in the election result) to vote in presidential elections. A model for estimating the chances of a candidate to win state electoral votes in presidential elections with two major party candidates under the modified ''winner-take-all'' rule is proposed. This model has the form of a two-person game on a polyhedral set of connected strategies with payoff functions each being a sum of two linear functions and a bilinear function. The model is one of the two models applicable for analyzing the proposed rule that are discussed in the article.