On reducing the influence of Condorcet cycles from pairwise election data

Abstract

Recent developments in voting theory show that Condorcet profiles embedded in electorates are responsible for distortions in pairwise election tallies of any pair of candidates from a given set. Such distortions are the sole cause of conflicts between the various pairwise voting methods and of reversals of rankings, when candidates are dropped from or added to the set. Because of the strong symmetry of the rankings of the candidates within these profiles, it can be argued that Condorcet profiles represent complete ties between the candidates. Hence removing their influence from the pairwise scores should not matter and moreover is justified because of the distortions they induce. The paper discusses a method of removing or reducing the influence of Condorcet profiles from pairwise elections data.