Trading Off Voting Axioms for Privacy

Zhechen Li, Ao Liu, Lirong Xia, Yongzhi Cao, Hanpin Wang

Keywords: Social choice theory, voting, differential privacy

TL;DR: This paper investigates both 2-way and 3-way tradeoffs among DP and several voting axioms, showing the cost of privacy in voting.

Abstract: In this paper, we investigate tradeoffs among differential privacy (DP) and several important voting axioms: Pareto efficiency, SD-efficiency, PC-efficiency, Condorcet criterion, and Condorcet loser criterion. We provide upper and lower bounds on the two-way tradeoffs between DP and each axiom. We also provide upper and lower bounds on three-way tradeoffs among DP and every pairwise combination of all the axioms, showing that, while the axioms are compatible without DP, their upper bounds cannot be achieved simultaneously under DP. Our results illustrate the effect of DP on the satisfaction and compatibility of voting axioms.

Readers: auai.org/UAI/2025/Conference, auai.org/UAI/2025/Conference/Area_Chairs, auai.org/UAI/2025/Conference/Reviewers, auai.org/UAI/2025/Conference/Submission53/Authors, auai.org/UAI/2025/Conference/Submission53/Reproducibility_Reviewers

Submission Number: 53