  Model checking of multi-agent systems (MAS) is known to be hard, both
theoretically and in practice. A smart abstraction of the state space may
significantly reduce the model, and facilitate the verification. In this paper,
we propose and study an intuitive agent-based abstraction scheme, based on the
removal of variables in the representation of a MAS. This allows to do the
reduction without generating the global model of the system. Moreover, the
process is easy to understand and control even for domain experts with little
knowledge of computer science. We formally prove the correctness of the
approach, and evaluate the gains experimentally on models of a postal voting
procedure.
