MAJORITY VOTE OF EVEN AND ODD EXPERTS IN A POLYCHOTOMOUS CHOICE SITUATION

The performance of majority vote by an odd number of voters in a dicho tomous situation is a much-studied subject. In this paper, we study th e performance of group consensus in a situation of polychotomous choic e. The differences in majority vote behaviour between even and odd num bers of expert panellists are examined, and the effects of adding new members are derived. Unlike the dichotomous model, optimality in the p resent context may not be uniquely defined, so the probabilities of th e consensus being ''correct'' or ''erroneous'' are both considered as the number of experts is increased.