Strategic Behavior in Voting: the Case of International Olympic Committee

The need for collective choice arises in one way or another in all spheres of life. This issue is especially relevant in the field of economics and politics. People often have to choose from several alternatives: voting for candidates for different political positions, choosing competition winners using jury members, holding tenders or choosing locations for events. The Olympic Games are one of the largest and most prestigious sporting events in the world. Therefore, each country is interested in being the organizer of the Olympic Games, given the opportunity to declare itself on the world stage. This increases the likelihood of manipulation when choosing a host country for the Olympic Games. Based on a case study of the choice of countries to host the Olympic Games in 2012, 2016 and 2020, the article explores the main aspects of the theory of collective choice and strategic voting. The main goal of the work analyze the impact of the strategic voters on the results of the voting by revealing another potential winner using instead of the original procedure of exhaustive ballot voting - the procedure of instant run off voting, in which preferences cannot be changed between rounds. The study also includes modeling of the preference tables and through mathematical modeling and programming – simulation of 100 000 scenarios of how unknown preferences could be distributed for each case. In addition, using the Borda method, calculating alternatives that did not win in the voting process, yet which maximize total welfare.