No abstract

We consider the computational complexity of a problem modeling bribery in the context of voting systems. In the scenario of SWAP BRIBERY, each voter assigns a certain price for swapping the positions of two consecutive candidates in his preference ranking. The question is whether it is possible, without exceeding a given budget, to bribe the voters in a way that the preferred candidate wins in the election.We initiate a parameterized and multivariate complexity analysis of SWAP BRIBERY, focusing on the case of k-approval. We investigate how different cost functions affect the computational complexity of the problem. We identify a special case of k-approval for which the problem can be solved in polynomial time, whereas we prove NP-hardness for a slightly more general scenario. We obtain fixed-parameter tractability as well as W[1]-hardness results for certain natural parameters.

To make a joint decision, agents (or voters) are often required to provide their preferences as linear orders. To determine a winner, the given linear orders can be aggregated according to a voting protocol. However, in realistic settings, the voters may often only provide partial orders. This directly leads to the Possible Winner problem that asks, given a set of partial votes, whether a distinguished candidate can still become a winner. In this work, we consider the computational complexity of Possible Winner for the broad class of voting protocols defined by scoring rules. A scoring rule provides a score value for every position which a candidate can have in a linear order. Prominent examples include plurality, k-approval, and Borda. Generalizing previous NP-hardness results for some special cases, we settle the computational complexity for all but one scoring rule. More precisely, for an unbounded number of candidates and unweighted voters, we show that Possible Winner is NP-complete for all pure scoring rules except plurality, veto, and the scoring rule defined by the scoring vector (2, 1, . . . , 1, 0), while it is solvable in polynomial time for plurality and veto.

Abstract. To make a joint decision, agents (or voters) are often required to provide their preferences as linear orders. To determine a winner, the given linear orders can be aggregated according to a voting protocol. However, in realistic settings, the voters may often only provide partial orders. This directly leads to the POSSIBLE WINNER problem that asks, given a set of partial votes, if a distinguished candidate can still become a winner. In this work, we consider the computational complexity of POSSIBLE WINNER for the broad class of voting protocols defined by scoring rules. A scoring rule provides a score value for every position which a candidate can have in a linear order. Prominent examples include plurality, k-approval, and Borda. Generalizing previous NP-hardness results for some special cases and providing new many-one reductions, we settle the computational complexity for all but one scoring rule. More precisely, for an unbounded number of candidates and unweighted voters, we show that POSSI-BLE WINNER is NP-complete for all pure scoring rules except plurality, veto, and the scoring rule defined by the scoring vector (2, 1, . . . , 1, 0), while it is solvable in polynomial time for plurality and veto.

No abstract