Strategic Voting Under Uncertainty About the Voting Method
Much of the theoretical work on strategic voting makes strong assumptions about what voters know about the voting situation. A strategizing voter is typically assumed to know how other voters will vote and to know the rules of the voting method. A growing body of literature explores strategic voting...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Open Publishing Association
2019-07-01
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| Series: | Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science |
| Online Access: | http://arxiv.org/pdf/1907.09110v1 |
| _version_ | 1819017198157430784 |
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| author | Wesley H. Holliday Eric Pacuit |
| author_facet | Wesley H. Holliday Eric Pacuit |
| author_sort | Wesley H. Holliday |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Much of the theoretical work on strategic voting makes strong assumptions about what voters know about the voting situation. A strategizing voter is typically assumed to know how other voters will vote and to know the rules of the voting method. A growing body of literature explores strategic voting when there is uncertainty about how others will vote. In this paper, we study strategic voting when there is uncertainty about the voting method. We introduce three notions of manipulability for a set of voting methods: sure, safe, and expected manipulability. With the help of a computer program, we identify voting scenarios in which uncertainty about the voting method may reduce or even eliminate a voter's incentive to misrepresent her preferences. Thus, it may be in the interest of an election designer who wishes to reduce strategic voting to leave voters uncertain about which of several reasonable voting methods will be used to determine the winners of an election. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-21T02:59:42Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-5cc2e34d8bc348b1bac74e65520dcb65 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2075-2180 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-21T02:59:42Z |
| publishDate | 2019-07-01 |
| publisher | Open Publishing Association |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science |
| spelling | doaj.art-5cc2e34d8bc348b1bac74e65520dcb652022-12-21T19:18:14ZengOpen Publishing AssociationElectronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science2075-21802019-07-01297Proc. TARK 201925227210.4204/EPTCS.297.17:44Strategic Voting Under Uncertainty About the Voting MethodWesley H. Holliday0Eric Pacuit1 University of California, Berkeley University of Maryland Much of the theoretical work on strategic voting makes strong assumptions about what voters know about the voting situation. A strategizing voter is typically assumed to know how other voters will vote and to know the rules of the voting method. A growing body of literature explores strategic voting when there is uncertainty about how others will vote. In this paper, we study strategic voting when there is uncertainty about the voting method. We introduce three notions of manipulability for a set of voting methods: sure, safe, and expected manipulability. With the help of a computer program, we identify voting scenarios in which uncertainty about the voting method may reduce or even eliminate a voter's incentive to misrepresent her preferences. Thus, it may be in the interest of an election designer who wishes to reduce strategic voting to leave voters uncertain about which of several reasonable voting methods will be used to determine the winners of an election.http://arxiv.org/pdf/1907.09110v1 |
| spellingShingle | Wesley H. Holliday Eric Pacuit Strategic Voting Under Uncertainty About the Voting Method Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science |
| title | Strategic Voting Under Uncertainty About the Voting Method |
| title_full | Strategic Voting Under Uncertainty About the Voting Method |
| title_fullStr | Strategic Voting Under Uncertainty About the Voting Method |
| title_full_unstemmed | Strategic Voting Under Uncertainty About the Voting Method |
| title_short | Strategic Voting Under Uncertainty About the Voting Method |
| title_sort | strategic voting under uncertainty about the voting method |
| url | http://arxiv.org/pdf/1907.09110v1 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT wesleyhholliday strategicvotingunderuncertaintyaboutthevotingmethod AT ericpacuit strategicvotingunderuncertaintyaboutthevotingmethod |