A political ballot gives voters the option to vote for one of three candidates. Eight voters cast their ballots. Which statistical rule should be used to determine the possible voting outcomes?

Conditional probability is used to determine the likelihood of an event occurring given that another event has already occurred. In this case, the voting scenario does not involve conditions that affect the choices of the voters. Therefore, it is not applicable for calculating the total number of voting outcomes since each vote is independent of the others.

The combination formula is used to determine how many ways a subset can be selected from a larger set without regard to the order of selection. In this case, we are not selecting a subset of candidates but rather counting all possible voting combinations from eight independent voters, making combinations irrelevant to this scenario.

Bayes' theorem is a method for calculating conditional probabilities based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. Since the question does not involve prior probabilities or conditions affecting the voting choices, this theorem is not suitable for determining the possible outcomes of the voting scenario.