Given the fundamental unidimensionality in the data on Supreme Court voting patterns 1951-93 we observe, we are able to determine the identity of "median" members of each court in a fashion that does not require subjective coding of the extent to which particular cases reflect left-right issues....

We develop and test predictions about the factors determining the competitiveness of elections to the U.S. Senate. To do so, we deliberately abstract away from candidate-specific conditions that have often been used to study political competitiveness in order to focus on basic structural...

One paradox of voting states that, in a general election, in which many citizens vote, the probability that a single voter can affect the outcome is so small that in general citizens have no rational reason for voting. However, if all citizens accept this reasoning, then none will vote, and so...

We provide a natural extension of the Borda count to the n-dimensional spatial context, an algorithm to find the spatial Borda winner based on the notion of an inverse Borda count, the result that the Borda winner and the Condorcet winner coincide in unidimensional space when all alternatives on...

We hope to have shown how it is possible, without a major change in present jury selection processes, to reduce one source of potential bias in jury decision-making by eliminating the possibility that jurors who serve on several juries during the course of their service will ever serve together...

Though few voters appear to hold consistent ideological views, the roll call votes of congressmen and senators can be well predicted by ideological terms. An explanation for this puzzle is that ideology allows candidates to succinctly explain their views. Because it is difficult to explain...