in 1980, william gehrlein and peter fishburn compared the borda count to other positional methods, such as plurality and approval voting. they investigated the likelihood of a positional method choosing the same candidate when the set of candidates was modified by eliminating one losing candidate from a three-candidate election, and two losing candidates from a four-candidate election. they found that the borda count was the positional rule which maximises the probability of electing the same candidate after this modification of the choice set.