Related papers: Physics peeks into the ballot box

We use the ``map of elections'' approach of Szufa et al. (AAMAS-2020) to analyze several well-known vote distributions. For each of them, we give an explicit formula or an efficient algorithm for computing its frequency matrix, which…

Some of the possible consequences of a generalized uncertainty principle (which emerges in the context of string theory and quantum gravity models as a consequence of fluctuations of the background metric) are analyzed considering the case…

We consider the problem of predicting winners in elections, for the case where we are given complete knowledge about all possible candidates, all possible voters (together with their preferences), but where it is uncertain either which…

We show that the probabilistic distribution over the space in the spectator world, can be associated via noncommutative geometry (with some modifications) to a metric in which the particle lives. According to this geometrical view, the…

We consider elections where both voters and candidates can be associated with points in a metric space and voters prefer candidates that are closer to those that are farther away. It is often assumed that the optimal candidate is the one…

Election results are determined by numerous social factors that affect the formation of opinion of the voters, including the network of interactions between them and the dynamics of opinion influence. In this work we study the result of…

I introduce a framework to distinguish two domains of physics - the manifest (i.e. the directly observable empirical records in terms of manifest configurations) and the non-manifest domain of physics (i.e. the things that the manifest…

One of quantum theory's salient features is its apparent indeterminism, i.e. measurement outcomes are typically probabilistic. We formally define and address whether this uncertainty is unavoidable or whether post-quantum theories can offer…

We provide mechanisms and new metric distortion bounds for line-up elections. In such elections, a set of $n$ voters, $m$ candidates, and $\ell$ positions are all located in a metric space. The goal is to choose a set of candidates and…

In the United States electoral system, a candidate is elected indirectly by winning a majority of electoral votes cast by individual states, the election usually being decided by the votes cast by a small number of "swing states" where the…

We show that the phase-space formulation of general probabilistic theories can be extended to include a generalized time-evolution and that it can describe a nonquantum hydrogen-like system which is stable, has discrete energy levels, and…

A number of problems in physics, mathematics, and philosophy involve observers in given situations which lead to debates about whether observer-specific information should affect the probability for some outcome or hypothesis. Our purpose…

We consider a spatial voting model where both candidates and voters are positioned in the $d$-dimensional Euclidean space, and each voter ranks candidates based on their proximity to the voter's ideal point. We focus on the scenario where…

The Schulze voting method aggregates voter preference data using maxmin-weight graph paths, achieving the Condorcet property that a candidate who would win every head-to-head contest will also win the overall election. Once the voter…

An election is a process through which citizens in liberal democracies select their governing bodies, usually through voting. For elections to be truly honest, people must be able to vote freely without being subject to coercion; that is…

Conformal predictors provide set or functional predictions that are valid under the assumption of randomness, i.e., under the assumption of independent and identically distributed data. The question asked in this paper is whether there are…

The predictability of a sequence is defined as the asymptotic performance of the best performing predictor in a given class. The value of the predictability of a sequence will in general depend on the choice of this predictor class. The…

We study the voting problem with two alternatives where voters' preferences depend on a not-directly-observable state variable. While equilibria in the one-round voting mechanisms lead to a good decision, they are usually hard to compute…

We establish three impossibility results regarding our knowledge of the quantum state of the universe. Suppose the universal quantum state is a typical unit vector in a high-dimensional subspace $\mathscr{H}_0$ of Hilbert space…

Recent experiments in adult mammalian tissues have found scaling relations of the voter model in the dynamics of the genetically labeled population of stem cells. Yet, the reason for this seemingly robust appearance of the voter model…