English

A quantitative Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem without neutrality

Combinatorics 2012-03-30 v2 Computer Science and Game Theory Probability

Abstract

Recently, quantitative versions of the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem were proven for k=3k=3 alternatives by Friedgut, Kalai, Keller and Nisan and for neutral functions on k4k \geq 4 alternatives by Isaksson, Kindler and Mossel. We prove a quantitative version of the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem for general social choice functions for any number k3k \geq 3 of alternatives. In particular we show that for a social choice function ff on k3k \geq 3 alternatives and nn voters, which is ϵ\epsilon-far from the family of nonmanipulable functions, a uniformly chosen voter profile is manipulable with probability at least inverse polynomial in nn, kk, and ϵ1\epsilon^{-1}. Removing the neutrality assumption of previous theorems is important for multiple reasons. For one, it is known that there is a conflict between anonymity and neutrality, and since most common voting rules are anonymous, they cannot always be neutral. Second, virtual elections are used in many applications in artificial intelligence, where there are often restrictions on the outcome of the election, and so neutrality is not a natural assumption in these situations. Ours is a unified proof which in particular covers all previous cases established before. The proof crucially uses reverse hypercontractivity in addition to several ideas from the two previous proofs. Much of the work is devoted to understanding functions of a single voter, and in particular we also prove a quantitative Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem for one voter.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1110.5888,
  title  = {A quantitative Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem without neutrality},
  author = {Elchanan Mossel and Miklos Z. Racz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1110.5888},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

46 pages; v2 has minor structural changes and adds open problems

R2 v1 2026-06-21T19:26:21.047Z