A Theory of Voting in Large Elections ∗ Richard D. McKelvey † Division of Humanities and Social Sciences California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA 91125 John W. Patty ‡ Department of Government Institute for Quantitative Social Science Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138 April 3, 2006 ∗ A previous version of this paper was entitled “Quantal Response Voting”. The financial support of NSF grants #SBR-9631627 and #SES0079301 to the California Institute of Technology are gratefully acknowledged. In addition, Patty acknowledges the financial assistance of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This paper benefited from helpful comments from seminar participants at CERGY-Pontoise (Oct 1998), CORE (Oct 1998), Tilburg (Oct 1998), Caltech Theory Workshop (May, 1999), Public Choice Society (New Orleans, March 1999), the Stan and Cal Show (Pismo Beach, May, 1999), the APSA annual meetings (Atlanta, 1999), and the Wallis Conference on Political Economy (Rochester, NY, October, 1999). We especially thank John Duggan, Tom Palfrey, Norman Schofield, Bob Sherman, two anonymous referees, and an Associate Editor for helpful input. † Deceased. Richard passed away on April 22, 2002. He is, and will be, terribly missed as both a friend and a scholar. ‡ Corresponding Author: jpatty@gov.harvard.edu 1