It's time to see if the polls are right.
Previously: the voting megathread
this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2024
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UK Politics
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Majority just means a larger number. The word has nothing to do with above 50%.
It is just used so in parliament because all non government seats can vote against the government, so to have the largest voting block you must have more then any other group.
As that is not the case in a constituency election, 1 vote over each other party is a referred to as a majority.
No, majority means 50%. The term for the largest number is "plurality".
"A plurality vote (in North American English) or relative majority (in British English)[1] describes the circumstance when a party, candidate, or proposition polls more votes than any other but does not receive more than half of all votes cast."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_(voting)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plurality
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/majority
According to that same Wikipedia link you shared:
Which has been simplified to just majority in the normal parlance in political coverage in the UK (see BBC, Sky News etc. in their coverage, they all use majority to mean relative majority when reporting on GE election results)
In first past the post elections "a majority of X" means the winner got X more votes than the second place. Words can have multiple ways of being used.
In the parliament, yes. But there is no such concept in a seat. There majority can only be the dictionary def. As 50% makes no difference to the seats' winner under fptp. Only who has the most votes.
And the dictionary def has no relation to 50%. Because it is an English term, not as political one. Heck, even in parliament, it's a more media term to help explain who has the ability to control votes.