Talk:Simple majority voting

Distinction between absolute and simple majority voting
The text on this page, besides containing wildly irrelevant paragraphs and pretty much incomprehensible ones, discusses a distinction between absolute and simple majority voting, a distinction which I can't find anywhere else as being a common one (under the terms that it uses). I am going to suggest the page be redirected to Plurality or some such page, unless somebody can clean it up to a point of usefulness. --DanKeshet 18:59, 5 February 2004 (UTC)

Confusing & May's Theorem
I added some interlinks, but it is a bit confusing (btw, I added article for May's Theorem so perhaps it doesn't have to be here?) I suggest people from WikiProject Voting Systems deal with it. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:33, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Do not delete this article without completed AfD
I'm contesting the unilateral deletion and no-content-transfer redirect of this article without discussion by User:Yellowbeard, who is a blatant sock puppet (see his contributions, from the beginning) who has removed many articles relevant to voting systems from Wikipedia; some were, in fact, ripe for removal, vanity, etc., but quite a few others were, in fact, notable, if in need of cleanup.

If Yellowbeard thinks that this article should be removed, he should deal with it piecemeal, so that we can be assured that any valuable content is not lost. I'm not arguing at this time that the content here should remain, but that contributed content should not be removed without thought and time for those who might be interested to comment and participate. Yellowbeard has depended on specialist articles not being regularly monitored by sufficiently active Wikipedia editors, so that stubs and other article cores get removed when a few editors with no knowledge of voting systems comment "Delete," who don't necessarily know the relevance and importance of the article topic, but only google the term, as if google were "reliable source for non-notability." It's evidence, not reliable source. Not everything is on Google under the name in English. Gradually, as I have time, I'll be undoing the wreckage that Yellowbeard has left behind. As part of this process, Checkuser is going to be requested, which might identify the puppet master, or might not. But the sock puppet tag I'm using is obvious from contributions. Yellowbeard registered and immedately began, same day, an AfD that was part of a political agenda, and all this will come out in detail, the record shows it clearly to anyone familiar with the political situation.

Right now, I'm simply acting to slow down the destruction. Helpful would be attempts to contact those who had edited these articles, and, if possible, to solicit their help in deciding if the article should stay, in cleaning it up, or in integrating any valuable content into merged articles. Yellowbeard is a pure destroyer of content, look at his history. --Abd (talk) 19:00, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Is "Simple majority voting" the same as "Plurality voting"?
Simple majority is Plurality in the two-option case, most commonly Yes or No. Unless the Plurality Voting article covers the special characteristics and history of Simple Majority, this article serves a purpose by being separate. However, Plurality Voting is generally considered in the case where there may be more than two candidates, plus, technically, an election with candidates A and B actually has, always, three outcomes: A, B, or no result (depending on rules). Now, that election, if the rules permit "no result," isn't a Simple Majority election, which is restricted to two possible outcomes; rather, a better example of a Simple Majority election would be a ballot with a single candidate, who must get a majority of votes to win. (Details would depend on rules).

It's important to understand that deliberative process depends on Simple Majority, and, deliberately, the vast majority of votes in a deliberative body are Simple Majority: there is one "candidate," a motion presented, and two choices: Yes or No. When the Yes votes exceed the No votes, the motion passes, otherwise it fails. Abstentions are not counted. (If they are, i.e., if they reduce the base for majority, it is not Simple Majority, I think).

Quite simply, "plurality" is never used as a name for this.

Definitely, this article needs cleanup, a lot of cleanup. The "needs sources" tag has been there for a long time. However, most of the material is well-known, so it's a matter of finding editors who can do the work of finding actual sources. If some particular statement offends an editor, and it is not sourced, the editor is welcome to take it out, given that there has been a citation needed tag for a long time. But a citation tag on an article is different from a citation tag on a particular claimed fact. Taking out the article is not a proper remedy. Instead, tag individual claims that are suspect, for starters. Taking out correct material based on simple lack of source is not civil and not helping to build the encyclopedia; often articles start as unsourced stubs, or sometimes an article written by an expert who simply writes from personal knowledge -- or from a student of the subject, similarly. --Abd (talk) 21:05, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

This article should certainly not be merged with plurality voting system, as there is a very clear distinction between plurality and majority. It seems strange that we'd even need to debate this.  r speer  / ɹəəds ɹ  03:25, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Certainly I agree; it's not strange, however, if one reviews Special:Contributions/Yellowbeard. Yellowbeard does not actually "merge" articles. Rather, when he can get away with it, he either goes for AfD, or he deletes the original content and redirects. He does not rescue any content, nor does he place deleted content on the Talk page of the target so that others could review it for possible usable content. It just vanishes for most editors, who would not know where to look to see it.


 * I'll place some cn tags in the article, where what is being stated is not well-known.
 * --Abd (talk) 05:56, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

New merge proposal: to Majority
A new merge tag was added to the article, proposing to merge it to Majority. "Simple majority voting" is an extremely common voting method, it is what is normally used to decide questions in deliberative process. Majority is not a voting method, it is a defined measure, see the article. Strictly speaking, "Simple majority voting" is a Plurality voting system with the "election" being limited to two possible votes, normally Yes or No. Because the result is the choice with the most ballots selecting it, and because abstentions are not relevant to the result, this means that a choice is selected with a plurality of ballots, a majority of ballots is not necessary. We can only use "majority" with respect to "Simple majority voting' if we restrict the basis, i.e., the winner is the choice with a majority of "valid votes," considering only votes that are Yes or No as being valid.

The article on Majority, in spite of what is said at the top, This article is about the mathematical concept of majority, does contain some discussion of "Simple majority voting," but, actually, that should be moved here. Majority should indeed be about the mathematical concept, and this article about the election method.

There is a different election method, used for choosing from three or more options which requires repeated balloting until a majority of ballots cast is obtained. This is actually what Robert's Rules of Order considers standard for elections. I can see that our usages here are a bit confused, which also reflects some variations in usage between regions.

There is a common confusion resulting from failure to consider the third option when there is an apparent choice to be made between two candidates for election: no choice. Hence if we have an election with Alice and Bob on the ballot, there are three possible outcomes: Alice, Bob, or no election. "No election" is the result if (1) Alice and Bob tie, unless there is a tiebreaker procedure, or (2) the rules count all ballots and a majority of ballots cast, containing a valid vote, is required to declare a winner.

This article should be clarified, Majority should be pared down to the mathematical concept, and we should have separate articles on simple majority voting as defined here -- which is a special case of plurality voting -- and voting where a majority of ballots is required. Absolute majority is sometimes used for this, which is then confused with the other usage, as our present article shows: a majority of all those qualified to vote. In Australia, Absolute majority is used to mean a majority of ballots cast. --Abd (talk) 20:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Please don't restore content without including sources. PhilKnight (talk) 16:14, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Eh? Phil redirected this article to Majority, and because this had been discussed or open for discussion a long time, and it seemed nobody was supporting the merger, I reverted it. That's all. If the article needs sources, they should be supplied, etc. But Simple majority voting is a different topic than Majority, as discussed above. Majority is a mathematical concept, which may be used in a voting method, but it is not a voting method. --Abd (talk) 16:20, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for explaining. PhilKnight (talk) 16:22, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Definitely, the article needs work. Many of the articles regarding voting methods were created in the rather wild and wooly early days, with thin or no sourcing and simple commentary, often by someone clearly knowledgeable, writing off the top of their heads. My practice has been to mostly leave this alone, beyond, sometimes, adding a cn tag. Hardly anyone is paying attention to these articles, though, and getting up to speed on the topics is a bit of a chore. My own Watchlist is now so enormous that I could easily have missed the merge. The real voting systems experts who, once upon a time, played a role in creating the articles, only look at them occasionally.... --Abd (talk) 16:47, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to merge with Majority rule
Actually, May's theorem is about Majority rule, which seems to be synonymous with Simple majority voting. What I'd suggest is a merge of the relevant material from this article to that article; for example, there is no mention of May's theorem there. I'd been distracted by the various proposals to merge this with Plurality voting (just plain wrong) and Majority (wrong for reasons given above). I'd prefer to see the material incorporated there, first, then, when that's done, Simple majority voting goes into hibernation as a redirect. I'm changing the tag on the article page to reflect this proposal, since the old proposal seems dead. --Abd (talk) 17:27, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with your proposal, Abd. Without having known about this page I was already planning on making more than minor edits to the article on majority rule, with a description of May's theorem among them. I'll incorporate material from this article into that one. --SgtSchumann (talk) 15:12, 31 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I suggest this: do the merge, i.e., put relevant information in Majority rule then comment here that you think the merge is ready. We can then review the two articles and see if there remains any objection to a merge. There is little harm in duplicated information for a while. --Abd (talk) 18:43, 31 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Good suggestion. I think the merge is ready now. In the majority rule article see the subsections May's Theorem and Voting on Single Issues and Suboptimality in particular to find material that was originally here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SgtSchumann (talk • contribs) 21:41, 31 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Everything is in order to do the merger. (For example, I've insured that there will be no double redirects.) I intend to do the merger in 48 hours unless someone here objects. --SgtSchumann (talk) 18:14, 9 November 2008 (UTC)