Candidate stability and probabilistic voting procedures

We extend the analysis of Dutta, Jackson and Le Breton (Econometrica, 2001) on strategic candidacy to probabilistic environments. For each agenda and each profile of voters’ preferences over running candidates, a probabilistic voting procedure selects a lottery on the set of running candidates. Assuming that candidates cannot vote, we show that random dictatorships are the only unanimous probabilistic voting procedures that never provide unilateral incentives for the candidates to withdraw their candidacy at any set of potential candidates. More flexible probabilistic voting procedures can be devised if we restrict our attention to the stability of specific sets of potential candidates. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg 2006