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Strong Quota Pair Systems And May's Theorem On Median Semilattices., Lucas Hoots

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Kenneth May [16], in 1952, characterized simple majority rule in terms of three conditions: anonymity, neutrality, and positive responsiveness. In this thesis, we remove the condition of neutrality and obtain a characterization of the class of voting rules that satisfy anonymity and positive responsiveness. The key concept in this characterization is the notion of a strong quota pair system. The situation with two alternatives studied by May can be thought of as a very simple example of a finite median semilattice. The main result of this thesis is an extension of May’s theorem to the domain of all finite median …