Voting system

Majority rule

Most voting systems are based on the concept of majority rule, or the principle that a group of more than half of the voters should be able to get the outcome they want. Given the simplicity of majority rule, those who are unfamiliar with voting theory are often surprised that such a variety of voting systems exists.

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If every election had only two choices, in fact, the winner could always be determined using majority rule alone. However, when there are three or more options, there may not be a single option that is preferred by a majority. The goal of most voting systems is to give a sufficiently fair way to choose the winner in such a situation. The variety of voting systems come from different approaches to this goal.

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