Condorcet Criterion
The Condorcet candidate or Condorcet winner of an election is the candidate who, when compared with every other candidate, is preferred by more voters. Informally, the Condorcet winner is the person who would win a two-candidate election against each of the other candidates. A Condorcet winner will not always exist in a given set of votes, which is known as Condorcet's voting paradox. When voters identify candidates on a left-to-right axis and always prefer candidates closer to themselves, a Condorcet winner always exists.
A voting system satisfies the Condorcet criterion if it chooses the Condorcet winner when one exists. Any method conforming to the Condorcet criterion is known as a Condorcet method.
It is named after the 18th century mathematician and philosopher Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, the Marquis de Condorcet.
Read more about Condorcet Criterion: Relation To Other Criteria, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the word criterion:
“If we are to take for the criterion of truth the majority of suffrages, they ought to be gotten from those philosophic and patriotic citizens who cultivate their reason.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)