It&#x27;s not dictators that are ok, it&#x27;s the overly strictly defined &quot;independence of irrelevant alternatives&quot;<p>It is entirely possible that reasonable voters will end up with a rock-paper-scissors situation among their top three preferences.  Such a situation will &quot;break&quot; Arrow&#x27;s theorem (rock wins an election vs scissors, but when paper enters now scissors wins).<p>But such a possibility doesn&#x27;t mean your voting system is bad, it&#x27;s completely fine to have that happen so long as one of the top rock-paper-scissors cycle wins.  This property is true of a whole lot of voting systems that Arrow needlessly dismisses.