NOL Seminar with Eric Pacuit
published: 2024-08-19
event date:
2024-08-26
The Nordic Online Logic Seminar
is organised monthly over Zoom, with expository talks on topics of interest for
the broader logic community. The seminar is open for professional or aspiring
logicians and logic aficionados worldwide. If you wish to receive the Zoom ID
and password for it, as well as further announcements, please subscribe here:
https://listserv.gu.se/sympa/subscribe/nordiclogic
Date Monday, 26 August 2024 at 16:00 CEST (UTC+2) on Zoom
Speaker Eric Pacuit (Professor of Logic, University of Maryland)
Title From paradox to principles: Splitting cycles and breaking ties
Abstract
Voting on two alternatives appears unproblematic compared to voting on three (or
more). When faced with only two alternatives, many arguments show that Majority
Rule distinguishes itself from all other ways of making a group decision. For
three or more alternatives, one faces the so-called “Paradox of Voting”: there
may be elections with a majority cycle in which a majority of voters prefer A to
B, a majority of voters prefer B to C, and a majority of voters prefer C to A.
In this talk, I will explain a series of results that axiomatically characterize
rules for resolving majority cycles in elections. These rules avoid the “Strong
No Show Paradox” by responding properly to the addition of new voters to an
election and mitigate spoiler effects by responding properly to the addition of
new candidates to an election.
This talk is based on joint work with Wes Holliday.