Plurality (voting)



A plurality vote (in North American English) or relative majority (in British English) describes the circumstance when a party, candidate, or proposition polls more votes than any other but does not receive more than half of all votes cast.

For example, if from 100 votes that were cast, 45 were for Candidate A, 30 were for Candidate B and 25 were for Candidate C, then Candidate A received a plurality of votes but not a majority. In some votes, the winning candidate or proposition may have only a plurality, depending on the rules of the organization holding the vote.

Versus majority
In international institutional law, a "Simple Majority" (also a "plurality") is the highest number of votes cast (disregarding abstentions) among alternatives. However, in many jurisdictions, a simple majority is a stronger requirement than plurality (yet weaker than "absolute majority") in that more votes than half cast, excluding abstentions, are required.

An "Absolute Majority" (also a "majority") is a number of votes "greater than the number of votes that possibly can be obtained at the same time for any other solution", when voting for multiple alternatives at a time.

A "Qualified Majority" (also a "supermajority") is a number of votes above a specified percentage (e.g. two-thirds); a "relative majority" (also a "plurality") is the number of votes obtained that is greater than any other option.

Henry Watson Fowler suggested that the American terms "plurality" and "majority" offer single-word alternatives for the corresponding two-word terms in British English, "relative majority" and "absolute majority", and that in British English "majority" is sometimes understood to mean "receiving the most votes" and can therefore be confused with "plurality".