Proportional Representation in Temporal Voting with Ranked Preferences

2026-09-24

AI Summary

This study addresses proportional representation based on ordinal preferences in temporal voting, specifically tackling the challenge of dynamic and heterogeneous voter truncation points. It introduces ordinal preferences into temporal voting for the first time, establishing an axiomatic hierarchy that encompasses both fixed and individualized truncation thresholds through a systematic integration of social choice theory, axiomatic analysis, computational complexity, and polynomial-time algorithm design. The work reveals the unguaranteed nature of Extended Justified Representation (EJR) and the inherent trade-offs arising from truncation flexibility. Furthermore, it identifies the precise conditions and algorithmic complexities required to guarantee Justified Representation (JR), Proportional Justified Representation (PJR), and Proportional Solid Coalitions (PSC). It demonstrates that sequential dictatorship is optimal in certain scenarios and establishes the NP-completeness of verifying these axioms.

Abstract

We study proportional representation in temporal voting, where one candidate is selected in each round. While prior work has focused on approval ballots, we consider ranked preferences, which may change over time. A natural approach treats each voter's top candidates as approved, but the right cutoff may differ across voters and rounds. We therefore require proportionality to hold for every admissible choice of cutoffs, whether fixed and common, common but varying across rounds, or set individually for each voter in each round. Combining these interpretations with temporal versions of justified representation (JR), proportional JR (PJR), extended JR (EJR), and proportionality for solid coalitions (PSC) gives us a hierarchy of axioms. We ask which of these axioms can be guaranteed, and with how much knowledge of the future. Unlike with approval ballots, no version of EJR can be guaranteed, and for the other axioms, flexibility in the cutoffs comes at a price. With a fixed common cutoff, JR, PJR, and PSC can be guaranteed, but only by rules that see all preferences in advance. Once the cutoff may vary across rounds, even such rules cannot guarantee JR or PSC for groups that agree in only some rounds. For groups that agree in every round, however, knowing only the number of rounds suffices for PJR in polynomial time, and PSC needs no knowledge of the future at all. Under individual cutoffs, no version of JR or PJR can be guaranteed, yet a rule as simple as serial dictatorship achieves PJR up to an additive loss that no rule can improve on, however much it knows. Natural preference restrictions restore exact guarantees. Finally, we show that checking our axioms is often coNP-complete; but perhaps surprisingly, a stronger axiom can be easier to check.

Problem

• Temporal Voting
• Proportional Representation
• Ranked Preferences
• Justified Representation
• Social Choice

Innovation

• Temporal Voting
• Ranked Preferences
• Proportional Representation
• Justified Representation
• Cutoff Flexibility