In British English
In UK constituency elections, which typically feature three or more candidates representing major parties, a plurality is sometimes referred to as a "majority" or a "relative majority" while the terms "overall majority" or "absolute majority" are used to describe the support of more than one half of votes cast. The plurality voting system is called first past the post in the UK.
For example, consider an election where 100 votes are cast for three candidates, with Alice polling 40 votes, Bob 31, and Carol 29. A Briton might say "Alice won with a majority of 9" (since Alice polled 9 more votes than her closest competitor), whereas a Canadian would only say "Alice won with a plurality", since the Canadian definition uses the word "majority" only if Alice would have polled more than all her competitors combined.
Read more about this topic: Plurality (voting)
Famous quotes containing the words british and/or english:
“Quite frankly, if you bed people of belowstairs class, they go to the papers.”
—Jane Clark, British millionaire politician’s wife. As quoted in Newsweek magazine, p. 15 (June 13, 1994)
“The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moment of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it.”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)