A note on decisive symmetric games

Abstract

Binary voting systems, usually represented by simple games, constitute a main DSS topic. A crucial feature of such a system is the easiness with which a proposal can be collectively accepted, which is measured by the “decisiveness index” of the corresponding game. We study here several functions related to the decisiveness of any simple game. The analysis, including the asymptotic behavior as the number n of players increases, is restricted to decisive symmetric games and their compositions, and it is assumed that all players have a common probability p to vote for the proposal. We show that, for n large enough, a small variation, either positive or negative, in p when p=1/2 takes the decisiveness to quickly approach, respectively, 1 or 0. Moreover, we analyze the speed of the decisiveness convergence.