The Complexity of Multiwinner Voting Rules with Variable Number of Winners

Abstract: We consider the approval-based model of elections, and undertake a computational study of voting rules which select committees whose size is not predetermined. While voting rules that output committees with a predetermined number of winning candidates are quite well studied, the study of elections with variable number of winners has only recently been initiated by Kilgour. This paper aims at achieving a better understanding of these rules, their computational complexity, and on scenarios for which they might be applicable.