Editing Ranked pairs (section)

{{Short description|Single-winner electoral system}}
{{Electoral systems sidebar|expanded=Single-winner}}
'''Ranked Pairs''' ('''RP'''), also known as the '''Tideman method''', is a [[Round-robin voting|tournament-style]] system of [[ranked voting]] first proposed by [[Nicolaus Tideman]] in 1987.<ref name="Tideman2">{{Cite journal |last=Tideman |first=T. N. |date=1987-09-01 |title=Independence of clones as a criterion for voting rules |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00433944 |journal=Social Choice and Welfare |language=en |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=185–206 |doi=10.1007/BF00433944 |issn=1432-217X |s2cid=122758840|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Schulze |first=Markus |date=October 2003 |title=A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method |url=http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE17/INDEX.HTM |journal=Voting matters (www.votingmatters.org.uk) |publisher=McDougall Trust |volume=17 |pages= |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200711055629/www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE17/INDEX.HTM |archive-date=2020-07-11 |access-date=2021-02-02 |via=}}</ref>

If there is a candidate who is preferred over the other candidates, when compared in turn with each of the others, the ranked-pairs procedure guarantees that candidate will win. Therefore, the ranked-pairs procedure complies with the [[Condorcet winner criterion]] (and as a result is considered to be a [[Condorcet method]]).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Munger |first1=Charles T. |title=The best Condorcet-compatible election method: Ranked Pairs |journal=[[Constitutional Political Economy]] |date=2022 |doi=10.1007/s10602-022-09382-w |doi-access=free}}</ref>

Ranked pairs begins with a [[round-robin tournament]], where the one-on-one margins of victory for each possible pair of candidates are compared to find a [[Condorcet winner criterion|majority-preferred candidate]]; if such a candidate exists, they are immediately elected. Otherwise, if there is a [[Condorcet paradox|Condorcet cycle]]—a rock-paper-scissors-like sequence A > B > C > A—the cycle is broken by dropping the "weakest" elections in the cycle, i.e. the ones that are closest to being tied.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Munger |first1=Charles T. |date=2022 |title=The best Condorcet-compatible election method: Ranked Pairs |journal=[[Constitutional Political Economy]] |volume=34 |issue=3 |pages=434–444 |doi=10.1007/s10602-022-09382-w |doi-access=free}}</ref>