Talk:Simple majority

No such thing

In Parliamentary Procedure,there is no such thing as a simple majority. There a majority. A majority is more than half of the votes cast by people entirled to vote excluding blanks or abstentions. (Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, 10th edition, page 387)

For example, with 20 people voting, a vote of 11 for and 9 against gives a majority in favor of the item. With 21 voting, a vote of 11 for and 10 against gives a majority in favor of the item.

If there are 20 people eligible to vote and the vote is 5 for and 4 against, the item passes. Abstentions do not count either way.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.148.233.141 (talk • contribs) 23 November 2004

I believe this is indeed what is called a simple majority, to distinguish it from an absolute majority where abstentions etc. are counted. David Kernow 22:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

American parliamentary usage discourages the term "simple majority", as it is potentially confusing. To see why, consider the term "2/3 majority": must there be a 2/3 vote, or is it a majority? It can be argued either way by someone wishing to thwart the intent of the rule. The recommended terms are "majority" and "2/3 vote".

For those cases where a vote is based on other than those present and voting, the base (for example, "a majority of those present") is always specified. If it is not, those present and voting is the default. The term "absolute majority" as described is not used. Jay Maynard 22:18, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I decided to change the part that read that a simple majority "is a majority in which the highest number of votes cast for any other candidate, issue, or item exceeds the second-highest number, while not constituting an absolute majority." This seems to be confusing a simple majority with a plurality. User:Joe Rodgers 20060309

Runoffs and balloting

Under Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, as well as other parliamentary manuals, no candidates' names are dropped from subsequent ballots after the first unless the bylaws specifically provide it. For example, see Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, 10th edition, page 426, line 27, through page 427, line 5. Jay Maynard 22:22, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Non-US Usage

A citation would be useful to support the allegation that in countries other than the US "simple majority" has a meaning other than as described in this article.

The term "majority" on its own is certainly sometimes used in the sense of the term "plurality" as described in that article (notably in Parliamentary elections). However, I have never heard the expression "simple majority" used in that way.

While individual organisations are free to defined their own specific terminology and procedures, in my experience the term "simple" majority is used in the UK and Europe generally as described. The qualification is to distinguish it from a "qualified majority" (for example in the EU Council of Ministers, usually a majority of States and at least 232 of the weighted votes), an "absolute majority" or (simply!) "majority" in the multi-candidate electoral sense.

The Oxford English Dictionary does not provide a clear definition of "simple majority", but the citations which use the term imply that its meaning as described in the article is not limited to the US. Tim B 12:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Request to edit article

• From Red1 D Oon (talk) 06:39, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
  • For the sake of information seekers who are not familiar and seek for the purpose of clarifying these, and since there is reference above to the distinguishing it from Absolute majority, i propose to add the following to the end of the article:
  • 'This is as distinguished from the term Absolute majority '.

Page structure and content

I'm loath to restructure or make significant edits to this page without (creating a space for) discussion. I think that we currently have the following issues:

• The page is structured as a disambiguation page, including beginning with "Simple majority may refer to:" but then goes on to list other terms which are contrasting but related, like Supermajority.
• The First-past-the-post voting description uses the term "simple majority" without clarification of which meaning is being used. I think we can agree that the term is ambiguous, given that this is a disambiguation page, and that this is doing nothing to resolve that.

Potential solutions:

1. Trim it down to a simple disambiguation page without extraneous, related articles
2. Move "supermajority" etc. to a "See also" (similar to how it's done on Majority_(disambiguation), as of 12:10, 10 January 2022 (UTC))
3. Return to having a full article, as it was circa 15 years ago prior to most of the content being merged into Majority

Whatever approach we take, I agree that it should distinguish explicitly from Absolute majority, as suggested in Request to edit article. greymullet (talk) 19:11, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Redirect

@Shhhnotsoloud Why the revert? I made this into a redirect to Majority (a page that discusses the term simple majority). I don't think there's any discussion of simple majorities in the other two articles here. –Sincerely, A Lime 03:22, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

@Closed Limelike Curves: because it was an undiscussed move to a stable disambiguation page that also left an incoming redirect Simple majority (disambiguation). Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 14:12, 2 June 2024 (UTC)