Distances in Voting

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Dorothea Baumeister
• Subject Area: Theoretical Computer Science
• Term: from 2017 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 391002557

The aim of this project is the systematic study of distances in voting. Distances play a central role in different fields of voting. They are for example used to define voting systems, to study different forms of interference, and in the rationalization of voting rules. In this project we will study distances in voting in three different tasks. In the first task we consider distances in single-winner elections. We start by considering properties of different distances measures when applied to voting rules, and study the role of distances in the axiomatic study of voting rules. In the second task we will focus on distances in committee elections. Here we want to investigate how single-winner voting systems based on distances can be transferred to committee elections together with an axiomatic study of such rules. One property that we want to investigate more detailed is justified representation. In the last task we consider distances in different forms of interference in single-winner and in committee elections. Here a special emphasis will be on bribery and manipulation. In the whole project we provide an axiomatic and computational study of the described problems.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants