Distinction
Though plurality (first-past-the post) is often mistaken for majority rule, they are not the same. Plurality makes the options with the most votes the winner, regardless of whether the fifty percent threshold is passed. This is equivalent to majority rule when there are only two alternatives. However, when there are more than two alternatives, it is possible for plurality to choose an alternative that has fewer than fifty percent of the votes cast in its favor.
Read more about this topic: Majority Rule
Famous quotes containing the word distinction:
“But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity.”
—Thomas Browne (1605–1682)
“If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Genocide begins, however improbably, in the conviction that classes of biological distinction indisputably sanction social and political discrimination.”
—Andrea Dworkin (b. 1946)