Speaker: Reyhaneh Reyhani
Affiliation: Computer Science Department, The University of Auckland
Title: A general model for effects of polls on voters’ behaviour
Date: Thursday, 4 Mar 2010
Time: 3:00 pm
Location: Room 401

The influence of pre-election polls on the result of an election is a problem that many authors have discussed. In this talk, we investigate this problem with a general model for m candidates under the plurality rule. Voters cannot be completely sure about the result of polls because of coverage bias or response bias. Therefore, we consider a general distribution of uncertainty in each poll for voters. We discuss the best strategy of voters according to the information that polls give them and how the sequence of polls leads voters to a unique equilibrium. We deduce a Duvergerian equilibrium in the limit in some cases. This is joint work in progress with Javad Khazaei and Mark Wilson.