Plurality voting system
The
plurality voting system is a single-winner voting system often used to elect executive officers or to elect members of a legislative assembly which is based on single-member constituencies. This voting method is also used in multi-member constituencies in what is referred to as an exhaustive counting system where one member is elected at a time and the process repeated until the number of vacancies is filled. The most common system, used in Canada, the lower house in India, the United Kingdom, and most elections in the United States, is
simple plurality,
first-past-the-post or
single-choice voting. In this voting system the single winner is the person with the most votes; there is no requirement that the winner gain an
absolute majority of votes, but rather only a plurality, sometimes called a
relative/simple majority. The distinction between American and British English is described by Fowler as follows: "With three-cornered contests as common as they now are, we may have occasion to find a convenient single word for what we used to call an
absolute majority...