Committee selection using attribute approvals

Abstract

We consider the problem of committee selection from a fixed set of candidates where each candidate has multiple quantifiable attributes. Instead of voting for a candidate, a voter is allowed to approve the preferred attributes of a given candidate. Though attribute-based preferences capture several important real-life scenarios, committee selection problem with attribute approval of voters has not properly formalized or studied. We present a detailed study of axioms, rules, algorithms, and computational complexity for the setting. Apart from extending previous axioms and rules, we design two new algorithms that are especially appropriate for our model.