Majority rule

Condorcet methods Positional voting Cardinal voting Quota-remainder methods Approval-based committees Fractional social choice Semi-proportional representation By ballot type Pathological response Strategic voting Paradoxes of majority rule Positive results In social choice theory, the majority rule (MR) is a social choice rule which says that, when comparing two options (such as bills or candidates), the option preferred by more than half of the voters (a majority) should win.

[4] However such requirement means that 41 percent of the members or more could prevent debate from being closed, an example where the majority will would be blocked by a minority.

This means that adding more options and changing the order of votes ("agenda manipulation") can be used to arbitrarily pick the winner.

[5] Buchanan and Tullock note that unanimity is the only decision rule that guarantees economic efficiency and eliminates the possibility of cycling in all cases.

[5] McGann argued that majority rule helps to protect minority rights, at least in deliberative settings.

In that case, under majority rule it just needs to form a coalition that has more than half of the officials involved and that will give it power.

"[citation needed] Amartya Sen has noted the existence of the liberal paradox, which shows that permitting assigning a very small number of rights to individuals may make everyone worse off.

[14] Where large changes in seats held by a party may arise from only relatively slight change in votes cast (such as under FPTP), and a simple majority is all that is required to wield power (most legislatures in democratic countries), governments may repeatedly fall into and out of power.

McGann argued that such cycling encourages participants to compromise, rather than pass resolutions that have the bare minimum required to "win" because of the likelihood that they would soon be reversed.