Voting Vocabulary
More than half of the total votes.
What is a majority?
The candidate with the most first-place votes wins under this method.
What is plurality voting?
If Candidate A defeats Candidate B in a head-to-head election, A is preferred by this many voters.
What is a majority of voters?
The amount left over after fair shares are distributed.
What is surplus?
Population divided by the number of objects being distributed.
What is the standard divisor?
A quota rounded up.
What is the upper quota?
A table that combines identical voting orders.
What is a preference schedule?
This voting method eliminates the candidate with the fewest first-place votes each round.
What is instant runoff voting?
True or False: If two candidates tie head-to-head, neither can be the Condorcet winner.
What is True?
In the Adjusted Winner Procedure, each participant distributes this many points.
What is 100 points?
Population divided by the standard divisor.
What is the quota?
True or False: In instant runoff voting, the total number of votes changes each round.
What is False?
Voting differently from your true preference to influence the outcome.
What is insincere voting?
This method places the top two first-choice vote getters into a final head-to-head battle.
What is contingent voting?
A candidate already has a majority of first-place votes. What can we immediately conclude?
What is the candidate is automatically the Condorcet winner?
Where the winning bid goes in the Method of Sealed Bids.
What is the holding account?
A quota rounded down.
What is the lower quota?
A candidate who receives 60% of the first-place votes is automatically this type of winner.
What is a majority winner?
The order in which candidates battle in sequential pairwise voting.
What is an agenda?
This voting system assigns points to rankings.
What is the Borda count?
In sequential pairwise voting, the winner is determined by this.
What is the last candidate remaining in the agenda?
The item that is split in the Adjusted Winner Procedure.
What is the item with point ratio closest to 1?
Hamilton’s Method gives remaining objects to states with the largest of these.
What are fractional parts?
A paradox where adding a new state changes another state’s allocation.
What is the New States Paradox?
A candidate who defeats every other candidate head-to-head.
What is the Condorcet winner?
Which voting system can fail to elect the majority winner?
What is the Borda count?
True or False: A Condorcet winner always exists.
What is False?
The fraction of the surplus that each person receives when three people participate in the Method of Sealed Bids.
What is 1/3?
A paradox where increasing the number of seats causes a state to lose a seat.
What is the Alabama Paradox?
The paradox that occurs when a state’s population increases, but it loses a seat during apportionment.
What is the Population Paradox?