Utilitarian collective choice and voting

Abstract

The theory of collective choice applies to voting, leading to the paradoxical conclusion that all voting methods are seriously flawed. Contrary to Kenneth Arrow’s theory, all voting methods are cardinal and thus not within its reach. A consistent cardinal theory of collective choice can be derived from utilitarian social choice theory. Various derivations used to justify this theory can be specialized to derive utilitarian voting, defined as a voting rule where voters freely assign scores in accordance with a given scale. Axioms presented by May and d’Aspremont and Gevers are all satisfied by utilitarian voting, interpreted appropriately. The incentive to vote strategically disappears or is, at worst, mild compared to methods commonly used today due to their restrictive nature. Whilst utilitarian voting is shown to be superior both under sincere and strategic voting, it does not always coincide with the Condorcet criterion due to excessively truncating the scale in binary comparisons. The analysis can be extended to evaluate current empirical methods. – AI-generated abstract.