Independence of Smith-dominated alternatives (ISDA) is a voting system criterion defined such that its satisfaction by a voting system occurs when the selection of the winner is independent of candidates who are not within the Smith set.
A simple way to describe is that if a voting system is ISDA, then whenever you can partition the candidates into group A and group B such that each candidate in group A is preferred over each candidate in group B, you can eliminate all candidates of group B without changing the outcome of the election.
Any election method that is independent of Smith-dominated alternatives automatically satisfies the Smith criterion, and all criteria implied by it, notably the Condorcet criterion and the mutual majority criterion.
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Martha Shelley, U.S. author and social activist. As quoted in Making History, part 3, by Eric Marcus (1992)
“The last alternatives they face
Of face, without the life to save,
Being from all salvation weaned
A stag charged both at heel and head:
Who would come back is turned a fiend
Instructed by the fiery dead.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)