Controlling Candidate-Sequential Elections

摘要

All previous work on "candidate-control" manipulation of elections has been in the model of full-information, simultaneous voting. This is a problem, since in quite a few real-world settings-from TV singing/dancing talent shows to university faculty-hiring processes-candidates are introduced, and appraised by the voters, in sequence. We provide a natural model for sequential candidate evaluation, a framework for evaluating the computational complexity of controlling the outcome within that framework, and some initial results on the range such complexity can take on. We hope our work will lead to further examination of temporally involved candidate control.