A social choice correspondence satisfies balancedness if, for every pair of alternatives, x and y, and every pair of individuals, i and j, whenever a profile has x adjacent to but just above y for individual i while individual j has y adjacent to but just above x, then only switching x and y in the orderings for both of those two individuals leaves the choice set unchanged. We show how the balancedness condition interacts with other social choice properties, especially tops-only. We also use balancedness to characterize the Borda rule (for a fixed number of voters) within the class of scoring rules.

16 pages, added link to coauthor