Anonymity-Proof Voting Rules

  • Authors:
  • Vincent Conitzer

  • Affiliations:
  • Departments of Computer Science and Economics, Duke University, Durham, USA

  • Venue:
  • WINE '08 Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Internet and Network Economics
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

A (randomized, anonymous) voting rule maps any multiset of totalorders (aka. votes) over a fixed set of alternatives to aprobability distribution over these alternatives. A voting rule fis false-name-proof if no voter ever benefits from casting morethan one vote. It is anonymity-proof if it satisfies voluntaryparticipation and it is false-name-proof. We show that the class ofanonymity-proof neutral voting rules consists exactly of the rulesof the following form. With some probability k f ∈ [0,1], the rule chooses an alternativeuniformly at random. With probability 1 − k f ,the rule first draws a pair of alternatives uniformly at random. Ifevery vote prefers the same alternative between the two (and thereis at least one vote), then the rule chooses that alternative.Otherwise, the rule flips a fair coin to decide between the twoalternatives. We also show how the characterization changes ifgroup strategy-proofness is added as a requirement.