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International Conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Computer Science

SOFSEM 2013: SOFSEM 2013: Theory and Practice of Computer Science pp 182–193Cite as

Being Caught between a Rock and a Hard Place in an Election – Voter Deterrence by Deletion of Candidates

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 7741))

Abstract

We introduce a new problem modeling voter deterrence by deletion of candidates in elections: In an election, the removal of certain candidates might deter some of the voters from casting their votes, and the lower turnout then could cause a preferred candidate to win the election. This is a special case of the variant of the Control problem in which an external agent is allowed to delete candidates and votes in order to make his preferred candidate win, and a generalization of the variant where candidates are deleted, but no votes. We initiate a study of the computational complexity of this problem for several voting systems and obtain \(\mathcal{NP}\)-completeness and \(\mathcal{W}[2]\)-hardness with respect to the parameter number of deleted candidates for most of them.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wilhelm-Schickard-Institut für Informatik, Universität Tübingen, Sand 13, 72076, Tübingen, Germany

    Britta Dorn

  2. Institut für Theoretische Informatik, Universität Ulm, James-Franck-Ring 5 / O27, 89081, Ulm, Germany

    Dominikus Krüger

Authors
  1. Britta Dorn
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  2. Dominikus Krüger
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Amsterdam, Plantage Muidergracht 24, 1018 TV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Peter van Emde Boas

  2. Informatics Institute, Intelligent Systems Lab Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098 XH, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Frans C. A. Groen

  3. Department of Civil Engineering and Computer Science, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Via del Politecnico 1, 00133, Rome, Italy

    Giuseppe F. Italiano

  4. Institute of Computing Science, Poznan University of Technology, ul. Piotrowo 2, 60-965, Poznan, Poland

    Jerzy Nawrocki

  5. Hasso-Plattner-Institute for Software Systems Engineering, Prof.-Dr.-Helmert-Str. 2-3, 14482, Potsdam, Germany

    Harald Sack

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Dorn, B., Krüger, D. (2013). Being Caught between a Rock and a Hard Place in an Election – Voter Deterrence by Deletion of Candidates. In: van Emde Boas, P., Groen, F.C.A., Italiano, G.F., Nawrocki, J., Sack, H. (eds) SOFSEM 2013: Theory and Practice of Computer Science. SOFSEM 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7741. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35843-2_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35843-2_17

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-35842-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-35843-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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