Dan Ullman

Any two different methods, if they're actually different, could conceivably lead to a different result.

The point is that different ways of thinking about it, different ideas you might have, different ways of eliminating or tallying the ballots can give different answers. You don't have to get people to change their mind. You just have to count their votes in a different way and a different winner can have them.

There are three candidates and there are 99 voters in this little scenario that I made up. But it's made to be a very close election.

The thing that underlies Arrow's theorem is the prospect that an electorate might like A more than B, B more than C, and C more than A. That sounds impossible or maybe irrational, but it absolutely can happen.