what is independence of irrelevant alternatives 
independence of irrelevant alternatives is an assumed condition within decision theory that states that preferences among options should be unchanged if additional but irrelevant alternatives are introduced 4 in the context of an election consider a ballot with multiple candidates if a losing candidate were to be eliminated from the ballot the result of the election should not change under the condition of independence of irrelevant alternatives if it does change then the condition has been violated the bottom linearrow s impossibility theorem states that it is impossible to reach a group decision through ranked voting without violating one or more of the key conditions of nondictatorship pareto efficiency independence of irrelevant alternatives unrestricted domain and social ordering the theorem falls under the umbrella of social choice theory or the study of collective decision making it is named after economist kenneth j arrow a nobel prize winning researcher 