Can a candidate win an election with less than a majority of the votes?

Answer 1

Usually not, if there are only two candidates, and it is not a US presidential election. Because of the electoral college, a person might become president after losing the popular vote. This is one of the checks and balances built into our system by the founders. Many think that it is time for the electoral college concept to be retired.

Answer 2

The only thing that matters is who gets the most votes, so a candidate could get 2 votes and win because all the other candidates got 1 vote.

The answer to this question depends ENTIRELY on the actual voting system being used for the election in question. See the Related Question below for a summary of the more common election types in the world today.

As this question is under US Presidential election, I'll answer it specific to that race's rules (which are archaic and complex).

Firstly, if your are referring to the POPULAR vote (i.e. the total vote count of all people in the entire country), then it is entirely possible, and, in fact, common for the eventual winner not to have a majority - about one-third of US Presidents don't receive an absolute majority when elected. It is even possible for a candidate to win the Presidency without a plurality (absolute largest number of vote, regardless of percentage); most recently, this happened in Gore vs. Bush in 2000, where Gore beat Bush by 0.5% of the vote, but Bush became President. Remember that the US Presidential election is an indirect voting system, where popular vote does not determine the winner, but rather selects representatives to the Electoral College to actually vote.

The Electoral college vote determines the US Presidential winner. Here, and absolute majority of the E.C. votes must be obtained to win. If the voting has no one winning an absolute majority, then the decision goes to the U.S. House of Representatives. There, only the top three vote getters from the Electoral College election contest. Each U.S. state is assigned one vote, and one candidate must win an absolute majority of these votes. Voting rounds continue until one of these three candidates gets the majority required.

Answer 3

Normally, yes but it will depend on the rules covering the election and turning a candidate into the winner.

To expand on the above, it very much depends on the type of election being run (that is, what exactly are the rules for that type of election). Under many forms of elections, it is entirely possible for the eventual winner to NOT have gained the majority of votes in the initial election.

Here are some of the major types of voting election types in the world today:

First-Past-The-Post: this is the form used for the vast majority of elections in the United States. There is only a single election for a single office, and the person who wins the largest absolute total of the vote (the plurality) wins. If there are more than 2 contestants, it is very common that the "winner" does not get a majority of the actual vote.

Multi-Round: once again, a single office is to be filled. However, the winner must have an absolute majority to win outright in the election. If no candidate can get 50% + 1 vote, then the top two vote getters (in terms of absolute number of votes received) partake in a Run-off election. The winner of this run-off (who is guarantied to get a majority) is declared the office-winner. This type is very common for most non-US Presidential elections.

Preferential: often called Ranked voting (with the most common type used called Instant Runoff Voting), the voter ranks the candidates in preference order. Sometimes the voting system has the voter rank ALL candidates in order (that is, if there were X candidates, the voter should give EACH candidate a ranking from 1 to X). Many others have voters chose their top 2 or 3 (or whatever number) candidates - so, if there were X candidates under this system, and the voting system had the voter pick Y rankings, X-Y number of candidates would receive NO ranking. Using this system, there is a complicated method for "transferring" votes from one candidate to another, until one candidate receives an absolute majority of "preferred" votes. Under this system, it is very common for the person receiving the absolute largest number of "Rank 1" votes to NOT end up winning the election. This is becoming common for many countries to determine individual representatives to a Congress or Parliament.

FPTP Multiple: in this system, there are N number of offices up for election (commonly, school boards in the U.S.), and X number of candidates. All voters are allowed a single vote. The highest N number of candidates in absolute vote total win offices. Under this system, virtually no candidate will ever win an absolute majority of the total vote, but it may be argued that a "majority" actually is not 50% of the total vote, but 50%/N of the total vote, in which case, usually at least N/2 of the winning candidates get a "majority" vote.

Preferential Multiple: similar to ordinary Preferential, the winners are determined by vote transfer of the ranking system, with the calculations being run N (the number of offices up for determination) times, removing the winner from the pool after each calculation. Once again, this results in the "most preferred" candidates winning. Some Parliamentary systems use this to elect a pool of candidates from individual sub-states to a national congress (or equivalent).

Proportional Multiple: this method is generally used in elections where Parties contend, not individual candidates. This method is very common when determining representation under the Westminster Parliamentary system for election to a Parliament. Here, there are N offices open, and a voter makes a single vote for a Party. Each party is assigned a number of offices equal to their proportion of the total vote they gained. It is up to the party to actually decide which person will fill each office. Normally, there is a minimum threshold (commonly, 5%) to which a party must attain before being assigned offices, and "rounding" is usually done in favor of larger vote-getters. For instance, say there are 60 offices, and there were Parties A, B, C, D, and E. A got 43%, B got 31%, C got 15%, D got 8%, and E got 3%, but there was a minimum 5% threshold. Thus, E gets NO seats. On straight percentages, A gets .43 x 60 = 25.8 seats, B gets .31 x 60 = 18.6 seats, C gets .15 x 60 = 9 seats, and D gets .08 x 60 = 4.8 seats, with E's "allocation" of .03 x 60 = 1.8 left over. The fractional assignment usually would mean that A, B, and C all get their fractional seats, leaving the totals a 26, 19, 9 and 5. That leaves 1 more, which is generally assigned to the one with the most total, A in this case.

Answer 4

Yes, if there are more number of opponents or participants in the election. When there are more parties, if 60% of votes are shared by them, and complete 40% is vested in the hands of single individual, then he can win. This is possible in democracy only. For example, say there are three parties contested for elections. then after election result, there is a chance of getting votes in the following fashion:

party 1: 25% votes.

party 2: 35% votes.

party 3: 40% votes.

Then obviously the third contestant will be the winner.

Answer 5

There are a couple of ways.

One way is to have more than two candidates running. In such a case, the person with the highest number of votes might be the winner.

Another way is to abstract the voting process in some way. This is done in US presidential elections, for example, where most states award all their electors to the person who wins the election in that state, regardless of whether they won by one vote or millions of votes. This can lead to situations where one candidate wins some states by a large margin and loses others by a small margin. Such a candidate might wind up with a significant majority of the popular vote, but a minority of the electoral vote.

Then there are more peculiar voting systems. Look up "Condorcet method" if you want to learn more than you probably want to learn about voting systems.

Answer 6

yes. It is not only possible but has happened four times- in 1824, 1872, 1888 and 2000.

The President is not elected by popular voted, but by the Electoral College.

Answer 7

yes. It is not only possible but has happened four times- in 1824, 1872, 1888 and 2000.

Answer 8

The President is not elected by popular voted, but by the Electoral College.