Abstract
Electing a committee introduces constraints beyond excellence, such as ensuring a balance of gender, tenure, talent, and other characteristics. The difficulties are captured by an actual example where every voter desired gender diversity on a committee and voted accordingly, but only men were elected. After developing the properties of certain methods that avoid these problems, other needs in this area are described.
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Notes
This is not hypothetical; when one of us (DGS) tallied CMC ballots for two different years, it was clear that some voters had adopted this strategic voting behavior.
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Acknowledgments
Saari’s research was partly supported by a research Grant NSF CMMI-1016785. Our thanks to the referees and an Associate Editor for several useful suggestions.
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Ratliff, T.C., Saari, D.G. Complexities of electing diverse committees. Soc Choice Welf 43, 55–71 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-013-0773-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-013-0773-8