Ulric B. and Evelyn L. Bray Seminar in Political Economy

We consider a symmetric information voting model where a group of uninformed voters must collectively choose a policy. An individual (information controller) can influence voters' choices by designing the information content of a public signal. We characterize the controller's optimal signal, and how it varies with the electoral rules and the distribution of voters' preferences. For instance, under a non-unanimous voting rule the controller can exploit voters' heterogeneity by designing a signal with realizations that target different minimum winning coalitions of voters. In anticipation of the controller's influence, voters can ex ante select the electoral rule. We characterize voters' preferences over electoral rules given how different rules endogenously affect the information that reaches voters. We provide conditions such that a majority of voters prefer a supermajority (or unanimity) voting rule, in order to induce the controller to supply a more informative signal.