Undressing the majority winner

[Charles Fiterman]

At 03:19 PM 11/11/98 -0500, you wrote:
>
>    Question:
>
>    If the "winner" of a three way (or more) race fails to get a majority of
>people's votes, yet gets a plurality and is declared the 'winner', is he
>legitmately the people's representative?  What if his other two opponents are
>more similarly inclinded and together represent the majority of voters?
>
>    Is this minority candidate truly the people's voice?

It all depends what the rules say and they need to be clearly
stated before the election. People run and vote on the basis
of the rules not abstract meta rules.

Jessie Ventura got a plurality against two opponents so close
I couldn't tell the difference with a scanning tunneling
electron microscope. Does this mean he should have lost?

But a lot of people who liked him voted for one of the
twins because they were afraid to waste their vote. He
might have gotten a majority against a single opponent.