Candidate Incentive Distributions: How voting methods shape electoral incentives
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We evaluate the tendency for different voting methods to promote political compromise and reduce tensions in a society by using computer simulations to determine which voters candidates are incentivized to appeal to. We find that Instant Runoff Voting incentivizes candidates to appeal to a wider range of voters than single-winner Plurality Voting, but that it still leaves candidates far more strongly incentivized to appeal to their base than to voters in opposing factions. In contrast, we find that other voting methods, including STAR (Score Then Automatic Runoff) Voting and Condorcet methods, incentivize candidates to appeal to currently-opposed voters as much to their base, and that these differences between voting methods become more pronounced the more candidates are in the race.
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