Abstract

Condorcet’s paradox is a cornerstone in social choice theory. It points out that in some elections, no matter which candidate wins, a majority of voters will prefer a different candidate. In these scenarios, what can we do to guarantee the support of a majority?

Elkind, Lang, and Saffidine proposed the idea of electing multiple candidates so that a voter only prefers a different candidate if the voter prefers this candidate to every elected candidate. Under this view, we hope that the “committee” of elected candidates wins a majority support against every candidate. We can clearly guarantee this property if all the candidates are elected, but what is the minimum number of candidates that need to be elected?

This talk is based on joint work with Moses Charikar, Alexandra Lassota, Prasanna Ramakrishnan, and Adrian Vetta.

Time

2025-10-20  14:00 - 15:00

Speaker

Kangning Wang, Rutgers University

Room

Room 602