> Second, I find it a bitconfusing that you refer to the simple whoever-gets-the-most-votes-wins method as "majority." I am more accustomed to calling it "plurality." Another name for it is "first past the post." I think the term "majority" is misleading, because it is quite possible for a candidate to win without a majority of the vote. Indeed, this is the root of all the problems in the plurality method. I don't think that there is a single method that should be called majority. Rather, majority rule is an ideal goal for single-winner methods, which turns out to be impossible to achieve in some situations because of the Condorcet paradox.
Thank you for pointing my error out to me. As I said, I am no expert: I see now that I confused 'majority' with 'plurality'. I have already made the appropriate changes in my local master copy of the web site and those changes will show next time I upload the site.
According to dictionaries, plurality is mainly an American word in this meaning. Other countries and languages tend to call it relative majority. What Americans call majority is absolute majority when you need to be precise.
Olli Salmi ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
