Related papers: Physics peeks into the ballot box
We consider an urn model with multiple drawing and random time-dependent addition matrix. The model is very general with respect to previous literature: the number of sampled balls at each time-step is random, the addition matrix has…
Our main contribution is the introduction of the map of elections framework. A map of elections consists of three main elements: (1) a dataset of elections (i.e., collections of ordinal votes over given sets of candidates), (2) a way of…
We propose a simple abstract formalisation of the act of observation, in which the system and the observer are assumed to be in a pure state and their interaction deterministically changes the states such that the outcome can be read from…
Every measurement determines a single value as its outcome, and yet quantum mechanics predicts it only probabilistically. The Kochen-Specker theorem and Bell's inequality are often considered to reject a realist view but favor a skeptical…
A problem of the equivalence of statistical ensembles is critically analyzed. It is shown, that although different probability distributions of statistical physics have the same behavior in the thermodynamic limit, there are physical…
Analyses of voting algorithms often overlook informational externalities shaping individual votes. For example, pre-polling information often skews voters towards candidates who may not be their top choice, but who they believe would be a…
The symmetric exclusion process and the voter model are two interacting particle systems for which a dual finite particle system allows one to characterize its invariant measures. Adding spontaneous births and deaths to the two processes…
Everettian Quantum Mechanics, or the Many Worlds Interpretation, lacks an explanation for quantum probabilities. We show that the values given by the Born rule equal projection factors, describing the contraction of Lebesgue measures in…
We discuss a non-equilibrium statistical system on a graph or network. Identical particles are injected, interact with each other, traverse, and leave the graph in a stochastic manner described in terms of Poisson rates, possibly dependent…
We consider a model where a subset of candidates must be selected based on voter preferences, subject to general constraints that specify which subsets are feasible. This model generalizes committee elections with diversity constraints,…
Consider an election between k candidates in which each voter votes randomly (but not necessarily independently) and suppose that there is a single candidate that every voter prefers (in the sense that each voter is more likely to vote for…
Following Hales (2018), the evolution of P\'olya's urn may be interpreted as a walk, a P\'olya walk, on the integer lattice $\mathbb{N}^2$. We study the visibility properties of P\'olya's walk or, equivalently, the divisibility properties…
In this contribution, we construct a connection between two quantum voting models presented previously. We propose to try to determine the result of a vote from associated given opinion polls. We introduce a density operator relative to the…
Complex phase factors are viewed not only as redundancies of the quantum formalism but instead as remnants of unitary transformations under which the probabilistic properties of observables are invariant. It is postulated that a quantum…
Consider a P\'olya urn where a drawn ball of colour $i$ is replaced together with a fixed number $m_i$ of balls of the same colour. We give a simple proof that if, for example, there are two colours and the urn starts with more balls of…
In the traditional voting manipulation literature, it is assumed that a group of manipulators jointly misrepresent their preferences to get a certain candidate elected, while the remaining voters are truthful. In this paper, we depart from…
Voter models are well known in the interdisciplinary community, yet they haven't been studied from the perspective of anomalous diffusion. In this paper we show that the original voter model exhibits ballistic regime. Non-linear…
Our preferences depend on the circumstances in which we reveal them. We will introduce a dependency which allows us to illustrate the relation between the possibility of winning of particular candidates in a quantum election and the type of…
Data of proportional elections show a striking feature: If the parties are ranked according to the number of their voters, the number of votes grows exponentially with the rank of the party. This so-called Zipf's law has been reported…
The voter model is a toy model of consensus formation based on nearest-neighbor interactions. A voter sits at each vertex in a hypercubic lattice (of dimension $d$) and is in one of two possible opinion states. The opinion state of each…