A Performance Test of a Power Index Computer Program

Abstract

There is a considerable literature studying voting power and power indices, however a<br>study exploring the practical aspects of voting power computation seems missing. This<br>study examines a power index program termination time and runtime memory usage in<br>large voting bodies up to 190 voters. In a comparison an up-to-date computer<br>surprisingly performs overwhelmingly better compared to a slightly older model. The<br>simulations reveal the greater speed of the up-to-date computer being due to more<br>advanced processor architecture together with a more efficient data bus and memory.<br>The applied all-in-one program is found rather slow due to simultaneous processing of<br>many indices. The runtime memory usage is found modest in the simulations. The<br>literature suggests that the time and storage complexity of the applied algorithm could<br>be reduced.