Majority: Difference between revisions

 

Many methods claim to elect the "majority winner" or work by "majority rule" (See, for example, the [[Center for Voting and Democracy|CVD]]'s talking points re: IRV: [http://www.fairvote.org/irv/talking.htm]). However, [[Condorcet's paradox]] raises an issue: with some groups of voters, no matter which candidate wins, ''some'' majority of the voters will prefer a different candidate. Below is a list of criterion, in ascending order of strictness, which could be used to rank the relative strengths of a "majority."

In pseudo-majority methods (like plurality and range voting), a given majority of the electorate '''can''' coordinate their intentions and decide the winner, but this merely postpones the question of how they do this. The stronger majority methods not only enable firmly coordinated majorities to assert themselves, but they allow un-coordinated majorities to '''reveal''' themselves, without any need for prior coordination. Voting methods that facilitate this process of revelation are considered superior to those that do not.