AN EXTENSION OF THE CONDORCET CRITERION AND KEMENY ORDERS by

The usual Condorcet Criterion says that if an alternative is ranked ahead of all other alternatives by an absolute majority of voters, it should be declared the winner. The following partial extension of this criterion to other ranks is proposed: If an alternative is consistently ranked ahead of another alternative by an absolute majority of voters, it should be ahead in the final ranking. The term "consistently" refers to the absence of cycles in the majority relation involving these two alternatives. If there are cycles, this criterion gives partial orders that can be completed with the Kemeny rule. An algorithm to construct Kemeny orders is presented. It is based on a result saying that a complete Kemeny order over all alternatives can be obtained by splicing together Kemeny orders on the subsets of an admissible partition of the alternatives underlying the Extended Condorcet Criterion.