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We consider a behavioral model of voting in multi-candidate elections under plurality rule. In the case of a positive impression of the campaign leader, voters increase their propensity to vote for that candidate, while in the case of a negative impression voters decrease their propensity. The formation of positive or negative impressions depends on an endogenous aspiration level. We show that in multi-candidate elections, in any stationary distribution, the winner receives a share of 50% of votes. Our results suggest that achieving coordination is 'path-dependent': whether voters manage to coordinate on the majority-preferred candidate critically depends on the initial state. We then identify conditions that make the election of the majority-preferred candidate more likely. However, even if the majority candidate is elected for sure, voting behavior is only partially coordinated.

This paper examines effects that alternative voting systems can have on electoral outcomes in multicandidate elections. Using ballots collected from a county Republican Party special election, we recount the votes using preference-based voting systems and compare the results to the special election outcome. Relative rankings of candidates change across vote counting rules and voting systems. Because candidates trade places depending on rules, there are strong strategic implications for candidates and for those establishing the rules. Adapted from the source document.

The rise of sole candidates in various local head elections in Indonesia has been the subject of many scholarly critical analyses. Most of the analyses perceive the phenomenon as a symptom of incumbency advantages, weak electoral systems, and poor institutionalization of political parties. This article proposes a new argument with the family-based elite perspective controlling the sole candidates' emergence process. We compared two regions in South Sulawesi province, explaining the political family networks that dominate the political competition by limiting candidature. The sole candidate elections can be understood by looking at family-based elite networks scattered in business networks, bureaucracy, political parties, aristocrats, and grassroots mass organizations. The families use an oligarchic elite network at the national level or a plural elite network at the grassroots level. The two types of family institutions are centralized and dispersed structures: Makassar has an oligarchy, while Gowa has relatively equal elite power. The family network's power has closed or hijacked the electoral political competition, establishing control over local elections by creating monopolistic political networks. Political family control is essential in understanding the rise of sole candidate elections in political practices.

The dynamic changes in the Law on Election for Governors, Regents, and Mayors prove that there are dynamics and progressiveness in the implementation of Pilkada. The process of the birth of laws, including the process of the birth of amendments to the Law, is a legal political process. The legal political process is under the authority of the legislator. The approach method used is normative juridical method. The power of legislators in the political and legal process is not absolute, because the government also has a domain of authority, although not as big as the authority of legislators. The result states that The legal political process always rests on the principle of normative democracy as the embodiment of the das sollen principle. At the level of implementation of the rule of law, there will always be legal anomalies, because there is a mismatch between normative democracy as the embodiment of the basic principle with empirical democracy as the embodiment of the basic sein principle. The legitimacy of a single candidate in Law Number 10 of 2016 concerning the Election of Governors, Regents, and Mayors makes the preferences of political parties increasingly pragmatism.

In this article I use a theory of individual utility maximization to derive a unified model of electoral behavior that includes both candidate choices and turnout decisions. Compared to this new unified model, existing specifications for jointly considering turnout and vote choice are found to be theoretically or empirically lacking. I provide methods for testing my model in elections with two or three candidates, and I show that the parameters of these models can be estimated without difficulty using maximum likelihood techniques. Application of these unified models to the 1988 and 1992 American presidential elections illustrates the potential contrasts between unified models and models that consider only candidate choices.

We study a core question of interest in political science: Do candidates position themselves differently under different electoral systems and is their positioning in line with the expectations of spatial theories? We use validated estimates of candidate ideological positions derived from quantitative scaling of 7,497 Japanese-language election manifestos written by the near universe of candidates who competed in the eight House of Representatives elections held on either side of Japan's 1994 electoral reform. Leveraging variation before and after Japan's electoral reform, as well as within each electoral system, we find that candidates converge in single-member districts and diverge in multimember districts, and converge on copartisans when not faced with intraparty competition and diverge when they do. Our study helps to clarify debates about the effects of electoral systems on ideological polarization and party cohesion in Japan and more generally.

This volume presents an analysis of the political representation of gay and lesbian elected candidates and elected officials within government institutions, especially at the state level. It presents a number of findings about the strategies of LGBT candidates for state legislative office, the conditions under which they run and get elected, and most importantly, how electing LGBT legislators helps efforts to shape policies favored by the LGBT rights movement