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Majority vote

The International Constitution, Appendix D, Section 2, subsection J, provides that:

“the candidate for each office receiving a majority of the votes cast for that office shall be declared elected. Any remaining unfilled offices shall be filled through a run-off election . . .”

The word majority, by dictionary definition, means “more than one-half.”

“Majority” does not mean “fifty-one percent.”

“Majority” does not mean “fifty percent plus one.”

If 99 valid votes are cast for an office, 50 votes is a majority even though 50 is less than 51 percent and less than 50 percent plus one.

Right? Right.

But suppose 99 members vote in an election in which three executive board members are to be elected from among eight candidates; now what constitutes a majority? This is a question frequently raised as an election committee completes its count, particularly in situations where “bullet voting” is not prohibited. The formula to be used is this:

Take the total of all votes cast for all eight candidates. Divide it by double the number to be elected or (2 X 3 = 6) six. Any candidate who has more votes than the resulting figure has a majority and has been elected.
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