Two volumes, published roughly 50 years apart  and both dealing with probabilistic analysis of collective decision making, are reviewed with the aim of tracing the developments in the field that stands somewhat outside the mainstream social choice and voting theory. It turns out that the core topics have remained the same, but with the passage of time the issues addressed have become more nuanced and the analysis techniques more advanced and variegated. Some topics dealt with in the earlier volume have been left behind and replaced by others in the later one. Originated largely in the U.S., the probabilistic tradition has now gained a firm foothold in several European research centres with many important topics analyzed by cross-Atlantic teams. At the same time new approaches stemming from computer science, geometry and other parts of mathematics have opened new vistas to the analysis of voting procedures.