For many voting rules, it is NP-hard to compute a successful manipulation. However, NP-hardness only bounds the worst-case complexity. Recent theoretical results suggest that manipulation may often be easy in practice. We study empirically the cost of manipulating the single transferable vote (STV) rule. This was one of the first rules shown to be NP-hard to manipulate. It also appears to be on...

We must properly model attacks and the preferences of the electorate for the computational study of attacks on elections to give us insight into the hardness of attacks in practice. Theoretical and empirical analysis are equally important methods to understand election attacks. I discuss my recent work on domain restrictions on partial preferences and on new election attacks. I propose further ...

The recent hearings on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's and Solicitor General Elena Kagan's nominations to the Supreme Court vividly exemplify the enthusiastic concurrence between the senators and the nominee that judges make neither law nor policy. Judges decide particular cases between particu­ lar litigants, the questioners and the responders agree, and in doing so they apply laws and policies made b...

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