title: Choice from a three-element set: some lessons of the 2000 presidential campaign in the United States
abstract: We consider the behavior of four choice rules - plurality voting, approval voting, Borda count, and self-consistent choice - when applied to choose the best option from a three-element set. It is assumed that the two main options are preferred by a large majority of the voters, while the third option gets a very small number of votes and influences the election outcome only when the two main options receive a close number of votes. When used to rate the main options, Borda count and self-consistent choice contain terms that allow both for the "strength of preferences" of the voters and the rating of the main candidates by voters who vote for the third option. In this way, it becomes possible to determine more reliably the winner when plurality voting or approval voting produce close results
keyphrases: three-element set 2000 presidential campaign plurality voting approval voting Borda count self-consistent choice