From Argumentation Frameworks to Voting Systems and Back

Formal voting theories are established and can be used to determine if a voting system is fair or not in order to preserve democracy. There are a lot of voting systems described in the literature, with several properties, useful in many contexts. The Argumentation Framework is based on the exchange and the evaluation of interacting arguments which may represent information of various kinds. We show that Argumentation Frameworks can be interpreted within a voting theory and considered as voting methods. Using a mapping that associates an argument to a candidate and attacks to votes, we define a bidirectional mapping between the two theories and investigate how fairness criteria defined for voting systems can be re-interpreted within Argumentation Framework. We also show how voting ballots can be seen as suitable semantics for Argumentation Frameworks.