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:
“The word “jealousy” is often used as if it were synonymous with envy; but I think the distinction worth preserving. Jealousy is predominantly concerned with the fear of loss of something one possesses, envy with the wish to own something another possesses. Othello suffers from the fear that he has lost Desdemona’s love. Iago suffers from envy of the position held by Cassio, to which he feels entitled.”
—Anthony Storr (b. 1920)
“There appears to be but two grand master passions or movers in the human mind, namely, love and pride. And what constitutes the beauty or deformity of a man’s character is the choice he makes under which banner he determines to enlist himself. But there is a strong distinction between different degress in the same thing and a mixture of two contraries.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“He says a man may perhaps answer, that the necessity of things held by him, is not a stoical necessity, but a Christian necessity, &c. But this distinction I have not used, nor indeed have ever heard before, nor could I think any man could make stoical and Christian two kinds of necessity, though they may be two kinds of doctrine”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)