Choosing the American Idol Condorcet Winner

On Friday, I was just having one of those days where I was in my ‘feels’, so I turned to Spotify to find a song that matched the mood. Quickly, I turned to my ‘feels’ playlist, and clicked shuffle hoping to find the perfect song. I lucked out, and on came one of the most fitting songs, Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day”. Next thing I knew, I was singing along and really vibing. After the song was over, it really got me reminiscing of the good old days when I used to watch American Idol with my family. This song in particular took me back to season 5 of American idol. This American idol season was a very important to me for a couple of reasons. For one, Elliot Yamin was one of the contestants, and he was a Richmond native. Naturally, I was his biggest fan, and I tried my hands at trying to slip in a few votes for him. The second reason, which is the one that pertains to this class, is the elimination of Chris Daughtry. The elimination was shocking because he had delivered an unbelievable performance, but he was found in the bottom two with himself and Katharine McPhee. When asked who should leave, Simon Cowell said that McPhee was going to be the one to receive the boot, but in the end, he was shocked to figure out that he was wrong. America had spoken, and they said Daughtry deserved the boot.

The decision discussed above was an important decision because the shocking early exit for Daughtry and the handful of others that followed after inspired the save feature. In American idol, we see the Hare style of voting at play. Each vote that is tallied is considered a first-place vote, and at the end of the night, whoever as the least amount of first place votes is the one that is going to be eliminated. That was the case for Chris Daughtry, but the judges thought otherwise. They thought that he was the best candidate out of the bunch, but he found himself in a similar situation as Romer during the 1991 Louisiana election. The judges had a gauge for what the audience wanted, but how did the Condorcet winner not end up winning? We had a paradox upon our hands. Chris Daughtry could’ve beaten any other contestant in a pair election, but he couldn’t win the American vote with all candidates squaring off with each other. In order to prevent this from happening in the future, the people another and the contestant another chance to pick the next (Condorcet) American Idol winner.