Considering the Effect of Abstention on the Distortion Value

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Latifian, Mohammad | 2019

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Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
Language: Farsi
Document No: 52983 (19)
University: Sharif University of Technology
Department: Computer Engineering
Advisor(s): Ghodsi, Mohammad
Abstract:
In Spatial Voting Theory, distortion is a measure of how good the winner is. It is proved that no deterministic voting mechanism can guarantee a distortion better than 3, even for simple metrics such as a line. In this study, we wish to answer the following question: how does the distortion value change if we allow less motivated agents to abstain from the election? We consider an election with two candidates and suggest an abstention model, which is a more general form of the abstention model proposed by Kirchgassner. We define the concepts of the expected winner and the expected distortion to evaluate the distortion of an election in our model. Our results fully characterize the distortion value and provide a rather complete picture of the model
Keywords:
Mechanism Design ; Algorithmic Game Theory ; Voting ; Computational Social Choice ; Spatial Voting Theory