Condorcet's Paradox Through the Eyes of Borda

This past Thursday, me and two of my suitemates were deciding on a single activity to do together as we wouldn't be seeing each other for a while due to Thanksgiving break. I wanted to play a few rounds of Mario Kart, Quinn wanted to play poker, and Raj wanted to watch Stranger Things. As we started to discuss our various preferences for the activities, I started to draw them out in the table below

Upon examining the table, I quickly realized that our group preferences were intransitive and would result in Condorcet's Paradox. I explained to my suitemates that our votes, aligned with our preferences, would perpetuate a cycle unless someone changed their preference and consequently their vote. My suitemates were a little confused with my explanation (I got really excited in explaining but wasn't as clear as Professor Coppock) and asked me to model this with the Borda Count which had helped us pick an activity for Diwali last week. I agreed and gave 1st preference 3 points, 2nd preference 2 points, and 3rd preference 1 point.

Showing them the numerical calculation helped them understand my explanation from earlier, and in a non-economist fashion we decided to call our last suitemate (who had gone home earlier in the day) for his input and he said he would watch Stranger Things as a first choice which allowed us to make our decision for the evening!