Deliberation with Partially Verifiable Information

We analyze a model of jury decision making in which jurors deliberate before voting between a status quo and its alternative. We study the impact of the voting rule on the existence of an equilibrium where any asymmetric decision-relevant information is revealed through deliberation. Austen-Smith and Feddersen (2004b) show in a general setting that the unanimity rule (with status quo) requires stronger conditions than other rules for the existence of such an equilibrium. In this paper, we extend this work by incorporating possibilities for committee members to prove some of their private information (ability to report a certi.ed document, constraint on lying or exaggeration, etc...). We show that when individuals have ability to certify information favoring the alternative, the unanimity rule performs better than other rules in requiring weaker conditions for the existence of such an equilibrium.