Mobile Ad Hoc networks (MANET), distinct from traditional distributed systems, are dynamic and selforganizing networks. MANET requires a leader to coordinate and organize tasks. The challenge is to have the right election algorithm that chooses the right leader based on various factors in MANET. In this paper, we analyze four leader election algorithms used in mobile Ad Hoc Networks. Factors co...

In the wake of Barack Obama’s presidential election, many wondered what his election indicates about the importance of race in the United States. In this paper, we explore whether a desire to protect the racial hierarchy motivated Whites to endorse the belief that Obama’s election means that race is no longer a problem. The results from two studies align with this possibility. Among Whites who ...

In a multi-level election, voters are divided into groups, an election is held within each group, and some deterministic procedure is used to combine the group results to determine the overall election result. Examples of multi-level elections include U.S. presidential elections and some parliamentary elections (such as those with regional groupings of voters). The results of such an election c...

We present an independent security evaluation of the AccuVote Optical Scan voting terminal (AV-OS). We identify a number of new vulnerabilities of this system which, if exploited maliciously, can invalidate the results of an election process utilizing the terminal. Furthermore, based on our findings an AV-OS can be compromised with off-the-shelf equipment in a matter of minutes even if the mach...

Leader election is an extensively studied problem in Ad hoc networks. In our study, we have implemented an extended idea of an existing leader election algorithm for energy saving to arbitrary topological changes. In this method, our focus is to reduce the number of leader election processes; to make it more energy efficient. Unlike the previous solutions, the algorithm proposes that each node ...

The Single Transferable Vote (STV) is a voting system used in some parts of Britain and Australia today. We model the voting system by randomly generating N candidates over [0,1], and assigning areas closest to them. As N increases, the probability that the STV election and the plurality election will produce the same result decreases. In single-winner elections candidates at .5 have the highes...

We study a new problem, the wakeup problem, that seems to be fundamental in distributed computing. We present efficient solutions to the problem and show how these solutions can be used to solve the consensus problem, the leader election problem, and other related problems. The main question we try to answer is, how much memory is needed to solve the wakeup problem? We assume a model that captu...

Replicated services often rely on a leader to order client requests and broadcast state updates. In this work, we present POLE, a leader election algorithm that select leaders using application-specific scores. This flexibility given to the application enables the algorithm to tailor leader election according to metrics that are relevant in practical settings and that have been overlooked by ex...

Selection tasks generalize some well studied problems, such as collective coin flipping and leader election. We present new selection protocols in the full information model, and new negative results. In particular, when there are (1 + δ)n/2 good players, we show a protocol that chooses a good leader with probability Ω(δ), and show that every leader election protocol has success probability O(δ...

We show how to compress communication in distributed protocols in which parties do not have private inputs. More specifically, we present a generic method for converting any protocol in which parties do not have private inputs, into another protocol where each message is “short” while preserving the same number of rounds, the same communication pattern, the same output distribution, and the sam...