A method for discriminating efficient candidates with ranked voting data
Ranked voting data arise when voters select and rank more than one candidate with order of preference. Cook and Kress [Management Science 36 (11) (1990) 1302] introduced data envelopment analysis (DEA) to analyze ranked voting data. By using DEA, each candidate may use the most favorable weights for him/her to estimate his/her own preference score. However DEA often suggests that more than one unit are equally efficient. So, a method to discriminate these efficient candidates is needed. Some methods of such purpose are proposed. However, these methods have a weak point that the order of efficient candidates may be changed by existence of an inefficient candidate. In this paper, we propose a new method. Our method does not use information about inefficient candidates to discriminate efficient candidates. It is based on a very simple idea, and is realizable visually. So, we hope that it is acceptable to election officials.
ranked voting data data envelopment analysis ranking of candidates