Condorcet efficiency is a measurement of the performance of voting methods. It is defined as the percentage of elections for which the Condorcet winner (the candidate who is preferred over all others in head-to-head races) is elected, provided there is one.[2][3][4]
A voting method with 100% efficiency would always pick the Condorcet winner, when one exists, and a method that never chose the Condorcet winner would have 0% efficiency. The outcome of a referendum on policy can be efficient if the conditions of the efficient voter rule are met.[5]
Efficiency is not only affected by the voting method, but is a function of the number of voters, number of candidates, and of any strategies used by the voters.[1]
It was initially developed in 1984 by Samuel Merrill III, along with Social utility efficiency.[1]
A related, generalized measure is Smith efficiency, which measures how often a voting method elects a candidate in the Smith set. Except in elections where the Smith set includes all candidates, Smith efficiency is a measure that can be used to differentiate between voting methods in all elections, because unlike the CW, the Smith set always exists. A 100% Smith-efficient method is guaranteed to be 100% Condorcet-efficient, and likewise with 0%.
Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet efficiency.
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