Plurality voting

Plurality voting selects the alternative receiving the most first-place votes. It does not require the winner to receive a majority of all votes.

First-past-the-post voting: An electoral system in which voters choose one candidate and the candidate with the most votes wins. This familiar single-winner system applies plurality voting in elections.
Single-member district: An electoral district that chooses one representative. Plurality elections commonly award each district's sole seat to its top-vote candidate.
Majority voting: A decision rule that requires an option to receive more than half of the votes to win. Plurality needs only more votes than each rival, not more than half overall.
Duverger's law: The tendency for single-member plurality elections to favor two-party competition. Its party-system prediction describes a major long-run consequence of plurality elections.
Majority criterion: A voting-system criterion requiring a candidate preferred by more than half of voters over every rival to win. Plurality voting satisfies this criterion when a candidate receives a majority of first-place votes.
Two-round system: An electoral system that holds a runoff if no candidate meets a specified threshold in the first round. A runoff can prevent a first-round plurality winner from taking office without majority support.
Approval voting: A voting method in which each voter may approve any number of candidates and the most-approved candidate wins. It lets voters support several candidates instead of naming only one first choice.
Political polarization: The division of political beliefs or groups into increasingly distant and opposed camps. Winner-take-all plurality contests can intensify competition between two major coalitions.
Spoiler effect: A voting outcome in which a candidate's presence changes which rival wins, often by splitting support. A third candidate can divide first-place votes and alter the plurality winner.
Instant-runoff voting: A ranked-choice electoral method that eliminates the lowest candidate and transfers ballots until one remains. It addresses vote splitting by transferring preferences rather than counting only first choices.

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