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
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“Faith in reason as a prime motor is no longer the criterion of the sound mind, any more than faith in the Bible is the criterion of righteous intention.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)