5,268 research outputs found
Independent Candidates in a Parliamentary Election in India: A Poisson Regression Model
The paper attempts to explain the number of independent candidates in Indian parliamentary election in the year 2004. The statistical models developed are applications and generalizations of Poisson and Negative Binomial distributions. Our results suggest that the distribution of independent candidates can be explained well with a negative binomial probability model or its generalizations. Our results also help to identify three major factors behind the variations in the number of independent candidates. First, a major determinant of the number of independent candidates is political fractionalization. Results suggest that the number of non-independent candidates would typically lead to more independent candidates in the fray. Interestingly, our analysis points out that the major determinant appears to be political fractionalization at the State level rather than at the constituency itself. Second, we find some indirect evidence of presence of free riders. Free riders typically stand in urban constituencies and against the so called VIP candidates. Third, our results suggest that SC and ST constituencies would have typically lower number of independent candidates due to lack of potential candidates as compared to general constituencies.Independent Candidates, Election, Poisson, Negative Binomial
Consistent Probabilistic Social Choice
Two fundamental axioms in social choice theory are consistency with respect
to a variable electorate and consistency with respect to components of similar
alternatives. In the context of traditional non-probabilistic social choice,
these axioms are incompatible with each other. We show that in the context of
probabilistic social choice, these axioms uniquely characterize a function
proposed by Fishburn (Rev. Econ. Stud., 51(4), 683--692, 1984). Fishburn's
function returns so-called maximal lotteries, i.e., lotteries that correspond
to optimal mixed strategies of the underlying plurality game. Maximal lotteries
are guaranteed to exist due to von Neumann's Minimax Theorem, are almost always
unique, and can be efficiently computed using linear programming
Approval-Based Shortlisting
Shortlisting is the task of reducing a long list of alternatives to a
(smaller) set of best or most suitable alternatives from which a final winner
will be chosen. Shortlisting is often used in the nomination process of awards
or in recommender systems to display featured objects. In this paper, we
analyze shortlisting methods that are based on approval data, a common type of
preferences. Furthermore, we assume that the size of the shortlist, i.e., the
number of best or most suitable alternatives, is not fixed but determined by
the shortlisting method. We axiomatically analyze established and new
shortlisting methods and complement this analysis with an experimental
evaluation based on biased voters and noisy quality estimates. Our results lead
to recommendations which shortlisting methods to use, depending on the desired
properties
The Cowl - v.26 - n.4 - Feb 16, 1973
The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 26, Number 4 - February 16, 1973. 8 pages. Note: Number of pages is incorrectly listed as 12 on the banner page. Note: The volume number printed on the banner page of this issue (XXVI) duplicates the volume number for 1963-64 academic year
The Complexity of Manipulating -Approval Elections
An important problem in computational social choice theory is the complexity
of undesirable behavior among agents, such as control, manipulation, and
bribery in election systems. These kinds of voting strategies are often
tempting at the individual level but disastrous for the agents as a whole.
Creating election systems where the determination of such strategies is
difficult is thus an important goal.
An interesting set of elections is that of scoring protocols. Previous work
in this area has demonstrated the complexity of misuse in cases involving a
fixed number of candidates, and of specific election systems on unbounded
number of candidates such as Borda. In contrast, we take the first step in
generalizing the results of computational complexity of election misuse to
cases of infinitely many scoring protocols on an unbounded number of
candidates. Interesting families of systems include -approval and -veto
elections, in which voters distinguish candidates from the candidate set.
Our main result is to partition the problems of these families based on their
complexity. We do so by showing they are polynomial-time computable, NP-hard,
or polynomial-time equivalent to another problem of interest. We also
demonstrate a surprising connection between manipulation in election systems
and some graph theory problems
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