A characterization of a family of consensus rules for committee elections (Q5938920)

From a finite number of voters with one vote of each is to select a committee from \(m\) candidates. The resulting vote is normalized and ordered so that it may be considered as a partition of \(m\) into non-increasing, non-negative parts. The committee size is not specified in advance and is chosen by an averaging, or consensus, rule, \(C_f\), that depends on a voting concentration function \(f\). The authors show that \(C_f\) satisfies the properties of extreme neutrality (chosen candidates should have strictly more votes than those not chosen) and minimal eligibility (candidates with no votes are not chosen) if and only if the concentration function \(f\) is strictly increasing and strictly concave downward. Hence, for example, the simple plurality function \(f_{spl}\) is the identity and is not strictly concave downward. The associated consensus rule fails the neutrality condition - it cannot select multiple candidates in the case of a tie.