Voting Power Index Analysis

Voting power index analysis measures the a priori capacity of each member of a weighted voting body to influence collective decisions, defined as the probability that the member is pivotal — that their vote turns a losing coalition into a winning one. The two canonical indices are the Shapley-Shubik index, introduced by Lloyd Shapley and Martin Shubik in 1954 as a specialization of the Shapley value to simple voting games, and the Banzhaf index, formalized by John Banzhaf in 1965. Both reveal that a player's share of power generally differs sharply from its share of votes.