Abstract
An overview of the importance of the work of both Condorcet and Borda is presented from a historical perspective. Their work is discussed with an emphasis on the possible voting paradoxes that evolved directly from their work: Condorcet’s Paradox, Borda’s Paradox and Condorcet’s Other Paradox. Many other strange outcomes that could happen in elections are shown with examples of other voting paradoxes from later researchers, including: No Show Paradox, Ostrogorski’s Paradox, Majority Paradox and Referendum Paradox. The importance is established for evaluating these paradoxes on the basis of the probability that they might ever actually be observed in practice, to determine if they really pose a significant threat to the stability of elections or if they just reflect some interesting theoretical possibilities with a small number of candidates.
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Gehrlein, W.V., Lepelley, D. (2017). Elections and Voting Paradoxes. In: Elections, Voting Rules and Paradoxical Outcomes. Studies in Choice and Welfare. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64659-6_1
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