Condorcet method


A Condorcet method is one of several election methods that elects the candidate that wins a majority of the vote in every head-to-head election against each of the other candidates, that is, a candidate preferred by more voters than any others, whenever there is such a candidate. A candidate with this property, the pairwise champion or beats-all winner, is formally called the Condorcet winner. Note that the head-to-head elections aren't necessarily done separately; a voter's preference between every pair of candidates can be found by asking them to rank the candidates, and then assuming they would vote for the candidate they ranked higher for each pairing.
A Condorcet winner might not always exist in a particular election because the preference of a group of voters selecting from more than two options can possibly be cyclic — that is, it is possible that every candidate has an opponent that defeats them in a two-candidate contest.. The possibility of such cyclic preferences in a group of voters is known as the Condorcet paradox. However, there always exists a smallest group of candidates that beat all candidates not in the group, known as the Smith set, which is guaranteed to only have the Condorcet winner in it when one exists; many Condorcet methods always elect a candidate who is in the Smith set when there is no Condorcet winner, and are thus said to be "Smith-efficient". The Condorcet winner is also usually but not necessarily the utilitarian winner.
Condorcet voting methods are named for the 18th-century French mathematician and philosopher Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, the Marquis de Condorcet, who championed such voting systems. However, Ramon Llull devised the earliest known Condorcet method in 1299. It was equivalent to Copeland's method in cases with no pairwise ties.
Condorcet methods may use preferential voting or separate rounds of runoff elections.
Most Condorcet methods have a single round of preferential voting, in which each voter ranks the candidates from most preferred to least preferred. A voter's ranking is often called their order of preference, although it may not match their sincere order of preference since voters are free to rank in any order they choose and may have strategic reasons to misrepresent preferences. The votes can be tallied in many ways to find a winner. Some - the Condorcet methods - will elect the Condorcet winner if there is one. They can also elect a winner when there is no Condorcet winner, and different Condorcet-compliant methods may elect different winners in the case of a cycle - Condorcet methods differ on which other criteria they satisfy.
The procedure given in Robert's Rules of Order for voting on motions and amendments is also a Condorcet method, even though the voters do not vote by expressing their orders of preference. There are multiple rounds of voting, and in each round the vote is between two of the alternatives. The loser of a pairing is eliminated, and the winner of a pairing survives to be paired in a later round against another alternative. Eventually only one alternative remains, and it is the winner. This is analogous to a single-winner or round-robin tournament; the total number of pairings is one less than the number of alternatives. Since a Condorcet winner will win by majority rule in each of its pairings, it will never be eliminated by Robert's Rules. But this method cannot reveal a voting paradox in which there is no Condorcet winner and a majority prefer an early loser over the eventual winner. A considerable portion of the literature on social choice theory is about the properties of this method since it is widely used and is used by important organizations. It is not practical for use in public elections, however, since its multiple rounds of voting would be very expensive for voters, for candidates, and for governments to administer.

Summary

In a contest between candidates A and B run using the preferential-vote form of Condorcet method, if more voters mark their ballots that they prefer candidate A over candidate B than the number of voters who mark their ballots to the contrary, then Candidate B is not elected.
However, because of the possibility of the Condorcet paradox, it is possible, but unlikely, that this objective cannot be realized in a specific election. This is sometimes called a Condorcet cycle or just cycle and can be thought of as Candidate Rock beating Candidate Scissors, Candidate Scissors beating Candidate Paper, and Candidate Paper beating Candidate Rock. It is only in how the various Condorcet methods resolve such a cycle that they effectively differ. If there is no cycle, all Condorcet methods elect the same candidate and are operationally equivalent.
For most Condorcet methods, those counts usually suffice to determine the complete order of finish They always suffice to determine whether there is a Condorcet winner.
Additional information may be needed in the event of ties. Ties can be pairings that have no majority, or they can be majorities that are the same size; these ties will be rare when there are many voters. Some Condorcet methods may have other kinds of ties; for example, it would not be rare for two or more candidates to win the same number of pairings, when there is no Condorcet winner.

Definition

A Condorcet method is a voting system that will always elect the Condorcet winner ; this is the candidate whom voters prefer to each other candidate, when compared to them one at a time. This candidate can be found by checking if there is a candidate who beats all other candidates; this can be done by using Copeland's method and then checking if the Copeland winner has the highest possible Copeland score. They can also be found by conducting a series of pairwise comparisons, using the procedure given in Robert's Rules of Order described above. For N candidates, this requires N - 1 pairwise hypothetical elections. For example, with 5 candidates there are 4 pairwise comparisons to be made, since after each comparison, a candidate is eliminated, and after 4 eliminations, only one of the original 5 candidates will remain.
To confirm that a Condorcet winner exists in a given election, first do the Robert's Rules of Order procedure, declare the final remaining candidate the procedure's winner, and then do at most an additional N - 2 pairwise comparisons between the procedure's winner and any candidates they haven't been compared against yet. If the procedure's winner doesn't win all pairwise matchups, then no Condorcet winner exists in the election.
Note that computing all pairwise comparisons requires ½N pairwise comparisons for N candidates. For 10 candidates, this means 0.5*10*9=45 comparisons, which can make elections with many candidates hard to count the votes for.
The family of Condorcet methods is also referred to collectively as Condorcet's method. A voting system that always elects the Condorcet winner when there is one is described by electoral scientists as a system that satisfies the Condorcet criterion.
In certain circumstances, an election has no Condorcet winner. This occurs as a result of a kind of tie known as a majority rule cycle, described by Condorcet's paradox. The manner in which a winner is then chosen varies from one Condorcet method to another. Some Condorcet methods involve the basic procedure described below, coupled with a Condorcet completion method, which is used to find a winner when there is no Condorcet winner. Other Condorcet methods involve an entirely different system of counting, but are classified as Condorcet methods because they will still elect the Condorcet winner if there is one.
It is important to note that not all single winner, ranked voting systems are Condorcet methods. For example, instant-runoff voting and the Borda count are not Condorcet methods.

Basic procedure

Voting

In a Condorcet election the voter ranks the list of candidates in order of preference. So, for example, the voter gives a "1" to their first preference, a "2" to their second preference, and so on. In this respect it is the same as an election held under non-Condorcet methods such as instant-runoff voting or the single transferable vote. Some Condorcet methods allow voters to rank more than one candidate equally, so that, for example, the voter might express two first preferences rather than just one. It is possible to instead allow voters to rate or score the candidates on a scale, similar to Score voting.
Usually, when a voter does not give a full list of preferences they are assumed, for the purpose of the count, to prefer the candidates they have ranked over all candidates they didn't rank, and to have no preference between the candidates they didn't rank. Some Condorcet elections permit write-in candidates but, because this can be difficult to implement, software designed for conducting Condorcet elections often does not allow this option.

Finding the winner

The count is conducted by pitting every candidate against every other candidate in a series of hypothetical one-on-one contests. The winner of each pairing is the candidate preferred by a majority of voters. Unless they tie, there is always a majority when there are only two choices. The candidate preferred by each voter is taken to be the one in the pair that the voter ranks higher on their ballot paper. For example, if Alice is paired against Bob it is necessary to count both the number of voters who have ranked Alice higher than Bob, and the number who have ranked Bob higher than Alice. If Alice is preferred by more voters then she is the winner of that pairing. When all possible pairings of candidates have been considered, if one candidate beats every other candidate in these contests then they are declared the Condorcet winner. As noted above, if there is no Condorcet winner a further method must be used to find the winner of the election, and this mechanism varies from one Condorcet method to another. In any Condorcet method that passes Independence of Smith-dominated alternatives, it can sometimes help to identify the Smith set from the head-to-head matchups, and eliminate all candidates not in the set before doing the procedure for that Condorcet method.

Pairwise counting and matrices

Condorcet methods use pairwise counting. For each possible pair of candidates, one pairwise count indicates how many voters prefer one of the paired candidates over the other candidate, and another pairwise count indicates how many voters have the opposite preference. The counts for all possible pairs of candidates summarize all the pairwise preferences of all the voters.
Pairwise counts are often displayed in a pairwise comparison matrix or outranking matrix such as those below. In these matrices, each row represents each candidate as a 'runner', while each column represents each candidate as an 'opponent'. The cells at the intersection of rows and columns each show the result of a particular pairwise comparison. Cells comparing a candidate to themselves are left blank.
Imagine there is an election between four candidates: A, B, C and D. The first matrix below records the preferences expressed on a single ballot paper, in which the voter's preferences are ; that is, the voter ranked B first, C second, A third, and D fourth. In the matrix a '1' indicates that the runner is preferred over the 'opponent', while a '0' indicates that the runner is defeated.
Using a matrix like the one above, one can find the overall results of an election. Each ballot can be transformed into this style of matrix, and then added to all other ballot matrices using matrix addition. The sum of all ballots in an election is called the sum matrix.
Suppose that in the imaginary election there are two other voters. Their preferences are and. Added to the first voter, these ballots would give the following sum matrix:
ABCD
A—222
B1—12
C12—2
D111—

When the sum matrix is found, the contest between each pair of candidates is considered. The number of votes for runner over opponent is compared with the number of votes for opponent over runner to find the Condorcet winner. In the sum matrix above, A is the Condorcet winner because A beats every other candidate. When there is no Condorcet winner Condorcet completion methods, such as Ranked Pairs and the Schulze method, use the information contained in the sum matrix to choose a winner.
Cells marked '—' in the matrices above have a numerical value of '0', but a dash is used since candidates are never preferred to themselves. The first matrix, that represents a single ballot, is inversely symmetric: is ¬. Or + = 1. The sum matrix has this property: + = N for N voters, if all runners were fully ranked by each voter.

Example: Voting on the location of Tennessee's capital

To find the Condorcet winner every candidate must be matched against every other candidate in a series of imaginary one-on-one contests. In each pairing the winner is the candidate preferred by a majority of voters. When results for every possible pairing have been found they are as follows:
PairWinner
Memphis vs. Nashville Nashville
Memphis vs. Chattanooga Chattanooga
Memphis vs. Knoxville Knoxville
Nashville vs. Chattanooga Nashville
Nashville vs. Knoxville Nashville
Chattanooga vs. Knoxville Chattanooga

The results can also be shown in the form of a matrix:
As can be seen from both of the tables above, Nashville beats every other candidate. This means that Nashville is the Condorcet winner. Nashville will thus win an election held under any possible Condorcet method.
While any Condorcet method will elect Nashville as the winner, if instead an election based on the same votes were held using first-past-the-post or instant-runoff voting, these systems would select Memphis and Knoxville respectively. This would occur despite the fact that most people would have preferred Nashville to either of those "winners". Condorcet methods make these preferences obvious rather than ignoring or discarding them.
On the other hand, note that in this example Chattanooga also defeats Knoxville and Memphis when paired against those cities. If we changed the basis for defining preference and determined that Memphis voters preferred Chattanooga as a second choice rather than as a third choice, Chattanooga would be the Condorcet winner even though finishing in last place in a first-past-the-post election.
An alternative way of thinking about this example if a Smith-efficient Condorcet method that passes ISDA is used to determine the winner is that 58% of the voters, a mutual majority, ranked Memphis last (making Memphis the majority loser and Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville above Memphis, ruling Memphis out. At that point, the voters who preferred Memphis as their 1st choice could only help to choose a winner among Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville, and because they all preferred Nashville as their 1st choice among those three, Nashville would've had a 68% majority of 1st choices among the remaining candidates and won as the majority's 1st choice.

Circular ambiguities

As noted above, sometimes an election has no Condorcet winner because there is no candidate who is preferred by voters to all other candidates. When this occurs the situation is known as a 'majority rule cycle', 'circular ambiguity', 'circular tie', 'Condorcet paradox', or simply a 'cycle'. This situation emerges when, once all votes have been tallied, the preferences of voters with respect to some candidates form a circle in which every candidate is beaten by at least one other candidate. For example, if there are three candidates, Candidate Rock, Candidate Scissors, and Candidate Paper, there will be no Condorcet winner if voters prefer Candidate Rock over Candidate Scissors and Scissors over Paper, but also Candidate Paper over Rock. Depending on the context in which elections are held, circular ambiguities may or may not be common, but there is no known case of a governmental election with ranked-choice voting in which a circular ambiguity is evident from the record of ranked ballots. Nonetheless a cycle is always possible, and so every Condorcet method should be capable of determining a winner when this contingency occurs. A mechanism for resolving an ambiguity is known as ambiguity resolution, cycle resolution method, or Condorcet completion method.
Circular ambiguities arise as a result of the voting paradox—the result of an election can be intransitive even though all individual voters expressed a transitive preference. In a Condorcet election it is impossible for the preferences of a single voter to be cyclical, because a voter must rank all candidates in order, from top-choice to bottom-choice, and can only rank each candidate once, but the paradox of voting means that it is still possible for a circular ambiguity in voter tallies to emerge.
The idealized notion of a political spectrum is often used to describe political candidates and policies. Where this kind of spectrum exists, and voters prefer candidates who are closest to their own position on the spectrum, there is a Condorcet winner.
In Condorcet methods, as in most electoral systems, there is also the possibility of an ordinary tie. This occurs when two or more candidates tie with each other but defeat every other candidate. As in other systems this can be resolved by a random method such as the drawing of lots. Ties can also be settled through other methods like seeing which of the tied winners had the most first choice votes, but this and some other non-random methods may re-introduce a degree of tactical voting, especially if voters know the race will be close.
The method used to resolve circular ambiguities is the main difference between the various Condorcet methods. There are countless ways in which this can be done, but every Condorcet method involves ignoring the majorities expressed by voters in at least some pairwise matchings. Some cycle resolution methods are Smith-efficient, meaning that they pass the Smith criterion. This guarantees that when there is a cycle, only the candidates in the cycle can win, and that if there is a mutual majority, one of their preferred candidates will win.
Condorcet methods fit within two categories:
Many one-method systems and some two-method systems will give the same result as each other if there are fewer than 4 candidates in the circular tie, and all voters separately rank at least two of those candidates. These include Smith-Minimax.

Two-method systems

One family of Condorcet methods consists of systems that first conduct a series of pairwise comparisons and then, if there is no Condorcet winner, fall back to an entirely different, non-Condorcet method to determine a winner. The simplest such fall-back methods involve entirely disregarding the results of the pairwise comparisons. For example, the Black method chooses the Condorcet winner if it exists, but uses the Borda count instead if there is a cycle.
A more sophisticated two-stage process is, in the event of a cycle, to use a separate voting system to find the winner but to restrict this second stage to a certain subset of candidates found by scrutinizing the results of the pairwise comparisons. Sets used for this purpose are defined so that they will always contain only the Condorcet winner if there is one, and will always, in any case, contain at least one candidate. Such sets include the
One possible method is to apply instant-runoff voting to the candidates of the Smith set. This method has been described as 'Smith/IRV'. It's also possible to do "Smith/Approval" by allowing voters to rank candidates, and indicate which candidates they approve, such that the candidate in the Smith set approved by the most voters wins; this is often done using an approval threshold. In Smith/Score, the candidate in the Smith set with the highest total score wins, with the pairwise comparisons done based on which candidates are scored higher than others.

Single-method systems

Some Condorcet methods use a single procedure that inherently meets the Condorcet criteria and, without any extra procedure, also resolves circular ambiguities when they arise. In other words, these methods do not involve separate procedures for different situations. Typically these methods base their calculations on pairwise counts. These methods include:
Ranked Pairs and Schulze are procedurally in some sense opposite approaches :
Minimax could be considered as more "blunt" than either of these approaches, as instead of removing defeats it can be seen as immediately removing candidates by looking at the strongest defeats. One way to think of it in terms of removing defeats is that Minimax removes each candidate's weakest defeats until some group of candidates with only pairwise ties between them have no defeats left, at which point the group ties to win.

Kemeny–Young method

The Kemeny–Young method considers every possible sequence of choices in terms of which choice might be most popular, which choice might be second-most popular, and so on down to which choice might be least popular. Each such sequence is associated with a Kemeny score that is equal to the sum of the pairwise counts that apply to the specified sequence. The sequence with the highest score is identified as the overall ranking, from most popular to least popular.
When the pairwise counts are arranged in a matrix in which the choices appear in sequence from most popular to least popular, the winning Kemeny score equals the sum of the counts in the upper-right, triangular half of the matrix.
...over Nashville...over Chattanooga...over Knoxville...over Memphis
Prefer Nashville...—686858
Prefer Chattanooga...32—8358
Prefer Knoxville...3217—58
Prefer Memphis...424242—

In this example, the Kemeny Score of the sequence Nashville > Chattanooga > Knoxville > Memphis would be 393.
Calculating every Kemeny score requires considerable computation time in cases that involve more than a few choices. However, fast calculation methods based on integer programming allow a computation time in seconds for some cases with as many as 40 choices.

Ranked pairs

The order of finish is constructed a piece at a time by considering the majorities one at a time, from largest majority to smallest majority. For each majority, their higher-ranked candidate is placed ahead of their lower-ranked candidate in the order of finish, except when their lower-ranked candidate has already been placed ahead of their higher-ranked candidate.
For example, suppose the voters' orders of preference are such that 75% rank B over C, 65% rank A over B, and 60% rank C over A. Ranked pairs begins with the largest majority, who rank B over C, and places B ahead of C in the order of finish. Then it considers the second largest majority, who rank A over B, and places A ahead of B in the order of finish. At this point, it has been established that A finishes ahead of B and B finishes ahead of C, which implies A also finishes ahead of C. So when ranked pairs considers the third largest majority, who rank C over A, their lower-ranked candidate A has already been placed ahead of their higher-ranked candidate C, so C is not placed ahead of A. The order of finish is "A, B, C" and A is the winner.
An equivalent definition is to find the order of finish that minimizes the size of the largest reversed majority.. This definition is useful for simplifying some of the proofs of Ranked Pairs' properties, but the "constructive" definition executes much faster.

Schulze method

The Schulze method resolves votes as follows:
In other words, this procedure repeatedly throws away the weakest pairwise defeat within the top set, until finally the number of votes left over produce an unambiguous decision.

Defeat strength

Some pairwise methods—including minimax, Ranked Pairs, and the Schulze method—resolve circular ambiguities based on the relative strength of the defeats. There are different ways to measure the strength of each defeat, and these include considering "winning votes" and "margins":
If voters do not rank their preferences for all of the candidates, these two approaches can yield different results. Consider, for example, the following election:
45 voters11 voters15 voters29 voters
1. A1. B1. B1. C
2. C2. B

The pairwise defeats are as follows:
Using the winning votes definition of defeat strength, the defeat of B by C is the weakest, and the defeat of A by B is the strongest. Using the margins definition of defeat strength, the defeat of C by A is the weakest, and the defeat of A by B is the strongest.
Using winning votes as the definition of defeat strength, candidate B would win under minimax, Ranked Pairs and the Schulze method, but, using margins as the definition of defeat strength, candidate C would win in the same methods.
If all voters give complete rankings of the candidates, then winning votes and margins will always produce the same result. The difference between them can only come into play when some voters declare equal preferences amongst candidates, as occurs implicitly if they do not rank all candidates, as in the example above.
The choice between margins and winning votes is the subject of scholarly debate. Because all Condorcet methods always choose the Condorcet winner when one exists, the difference between methods only appears when cyclic ambiguity resolution is required. The argument for using winning votes follows from this: Because cycle resolution involves disenfranchising a selection of votes, then the selection should disenfranchise the fewest possible number of votes. When margins are used, the difference between the number of two candidates' votes may be small, but the number of votes may be very large—or not. Only methods employing winning votes satisfy Woodall's plurality criterion.
An argument in favour of using margins is the fact that the result of a pairwise comparison is decided by the presence of more votes for one side than the other and thus that it follows naturally to assess the strength of a comparison by this "surplus" for the winning side. Otherwise, changing only a few votes from the winner to the loser could cause a sudden large change from a large score for one side to a large score for the other. In other words, one could consider losing votes being in fact disenfranchised when it comes to ambiguity resolution with winning votes. Also, using winning votes, a vote containing ties doesn't have the same effect as a number of equally weighted votes with total weight equaling one vote, such that the ties are broken in every possible way, as opposed to margins.
Under winning votes, if two more of the "B" voters decided to vote "BC", the A->C arm of the cycle would be overturned and Condorcet would pick C instead of B. This is an example of "Unburying" or "Later does harm". The margin method would pick C anyway.
Under the margin method, if three more "BC" voters decided to "bury" C by just voting "B", the A->C arm of the cycle would be strengthened and the resolution strategies would end up breaking the C->B arm and giving the win to B. This is an example of "Burying". The winning votes method would pick B anyway.

Related terms

Other terms related to the Condorcet method are:
;Condorcet loser: the candidate who is less preferred than every other candidate in a pairwise matchup.
;Weak Condorcet winner: a candidate who beats or ties with every other candidate in a pairwise matchup. There can be more than one weak Condorcet winner.
;Weak Condorcet loser: a candidate who is defeated by or ties with every other candidate in a pairwise matchup. Similarly, there can be more than one weak Condorcet loser.

Condorcet ranking methods

Some Condorcet methods produce not just a single winner, but a ranking of all candidates from first to last place. A Condorcet ranking is a list of candidates with the property that the Condorcet winner comes first and the Condorcet loser comes last, and this holds recursively for the candidates ranked between them.
Methods that satisfy this property include:
Though there won't always be a Condorcet winner or Condorcet loser, there is always a Smith set and "Smith loser set". Some voting methods produce rankings that sort all candidates in the Smith set above all others, and all candidates in the Smith loser set below all others, with this holding recursively for all candidates ranked between them; in essence, this guarantees that when the candidates can be split into two groups, such that every candidate in the first group beats every candidate in the second group head-to-head, then all candidates in the first group are ranked higher than all candidates in the second group. Because the Smith set and Smith loser set are equivalent to the Condorcet winner and Condorcet loser when they exist, methods that always produce Smith set rankings also always produce Condorcet rankings.

Comparison with instant runoff and first-past-the-post (plurality)

Many proponents of instant-runoff voting are attracted by the belief that if their first choice does not win, their vote will be given to their second choice; if their second choice does not win, their vote will be given to their third choice, etc. This sounds perfect, but it is not true for every voter with IRV. If someone voted for a strong candidate, and their 2nd and 3rd choices are eliminated before their first choice is eliminated, IRV gives their vote to their 4th choice candidate, not their 2nd choice. Condorcet voting takes all rankings into account simultaneously, but at the expense of violating the later-no-harm criterion and the later-no-help criterion. With IRV, indicating a second choice will never affect your first choice. With Condorcet voting, it is possible that indicating a second choice will cause your first choice to lose.
Plurality voting is simple, and theoretically provides incentives for voters to compromise for centrist candidates rather than throw away their votes on candidates who can't win. Opponents to plurality voting point out that voters often vote for the lesser of evils because they heard on the news that those two are the only two with a chance of winning, not necessarily because those two are the two natural compromises. This gives the media significant election powers. And if voters do compromise according to the media, the post election counts will prove the media right for next time. Condorcet runs each candidate against the other head to head, so that voters elect the candidate who would win the most sincere runoffs, instead of the one they thought they had to vote for.
There are circumstances, as in the examples above, when both instant-runoff voting and the 'first-past-the-post' plurality system will fail to pick the Condorcet winner. In cases where there is a Condorcet Winner, and where IRV does not choose it, a majority would by definition prefer the Condorcet Winner to the IRV winner. Proponents of the Condorcet criterion see it as a principal issue in selecting an electoral system. They see the Condorcet criterion as a natural extension of majority rule. Condorcet methods tend to encourage the selection of centrist candidates who appeal to the median voter. Here is an example that is designed to support IRV at the expense of Condorcet:
499 voters3 voters498 voters
1. A1. B1. C
2. B2. C2. B
3. C3. A3. A

B is preferred by a 501–499 majority to A, and by a 502–498 majority to C. So, according to the Condorcet criterion, B should win, despite the fact that very few voters rank B in first place. By contrast, IRV elects C and plurality elects A. The goal of a ranked voting system is for voters to be able to vote sincerely and trust the system to protect their intent. Plurality voting forces voters to do all their tactics before they vote, so that the system does not need to figure out their intent.
The significance of this scenario, of two parties with strong support, and the one with weak support being the Condorcet winner, may be misleading, though, as it is a common mode in plurality voting systems, but much less likely to occur in Condorcet or IRV elections, which unlike Plurality voting, punish candidates who alienate a significant block of voters.
Here is an example that is designed to support Condorcet at the expense of IRV:
33 voters16 voters16 voters35 voters
1. A1. B1. B1. C
2. B2. A2. C2. B
3. C3. C3. A3. A

B would win against either A or C by more than a 65–35 margin in a one-on-one election, but IRV eliminates B first, leaving a contest between the more "polar" candidates, A and C. Proponents of plurality voting state that their system is simpler than any other and more easily understood.
All three systems are susceptible to tactical voting, but the types of tactics used and the frequency of strategic incentive differ in each method.

Potential for tactical voting

Like all voting methods, Condorcet methods are vulnerable to compromising. That is, voters can help avoid the election of a less-preferred candidate by insincerely raising the position of a more-preferred candidate on their ballot. However, Condorcet methods are only vulnerable to compromising when there is a majority rule cycle, or when one can be created.
All Condorcet methods are at least somewhat vulnerable to burying. That is, voters can sometimes help a more-preferred candidate by insincerely lowering the position of a less-preferred candidate on their ballot.
Example with the Schulze method:
46 voters44 voters10 voters
1. A1. B1. C
2. B2. A2. B
3. C3. C3. A

46 voters44 voters10 voters
1. A1. B1. C
2. C*2. A2. B
3. B*3. C3. A

Supporters of Condorcet methods which exhibit this potential problem could rebut this concern by pointing out that pre-election polls are most necessary with plurality voting, and that voters, armed with ranked choice voting, could lie to pre-election pollsters, making it impossible for Candidate A to know whether or how to bury. It is also nearly impossible to predict ahead of time how many supporters of A would actually follow the instructions, and how many would be alienated by such an obvious attempt to manipulate the system.
33 voters16 voters16 voters35 voters
1. A1. B1. B1. C
2. B2. A2. C2. B
3. C3. C3. A3. A

Scholars of electoral systems often compare them using mathematically defined voting system criteria. The criteria which Condorcet methods satisfy vary from one Condorcet method to another. However, the Condorcet criterion implies the majority criterion, and thus is incompatible with independence of irrelevant alternatives, later-no-harm, the participation criterion, and the consistency criterion.
MonotonicCondorcet
loser		Clone
independence		Reversal
symmetry		Polynomial
time		ResolvableLocal
independence
of irrelevant
alternatives
Schulze
Ranked Pairs
Minimax
Nanson
Kemeny–Young
Dodgson
Copeland

Use of Condorcet voting

Condorcet methods are not known to be currently in use in government elections anywhere in the world, but a Condorcet method known as Nanson's method was used in city elections in the U.S. town of Marquette, Michigan in the 1920s, and today Condorcet methods are used by a number of private organizations. Organizations which currently use some variant of the Condorcet method are: