Abstract:The Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem states that every non-dictatorial election rule among at least three alternatives can be strategically manipulated. We prove a quantitative version of the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem: a random manipulation by a single random voter will succeed with a non-negligible probability for any election rule among three alternatives that is far from being a dictatorship and from having only two alternatives in its range.
Abstract:The entropy/influence conjecture, raised by Friedgut and Kalai in 1996, seeks to relate two different measures of concentration of the Fourier coefficients of a Boolean function. Roughly saying, it claims that if the Fourier spectrum is "smeared out", then the Fourier coefficients are concentrated on "high" levels. In this note we generalize the conjecture to biased product measures on the discrete cube, and prove a variant of the conjecture for functions with an extremely low Fourier weight on the "high" levels.