Rights Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License Why Does New Hampshire Matter Simultaneous v.s. Sequential Election with Multiple Candidates

I study and compare preference aggregation in a simultaneous and a sequential multicandidate election. Voters have perfect information about their own preference but do not know the median voters preference. A voter has an incentive to vote for her second choice for fear that a tie between her second and third choice is more likely than she would like. Therefore, a voter may want to coordinate with supports of her second choice. I show that when voters preference intensity for their rst choice is moderate, in the limit as the electorate increases, there is a unique equilibrium in the voting game within one voting round exhibiting multi-candidate support. In such an equilibrium, the ex ante probability that a candidate wins increases in her supporters preference intensity and decreases in her opponentspreference intensity. There is too much coordination with supporters of a voters second choice in that sometimes the median voters second choice wins the election. A sequential electio