N O T E S

1. Majority. A majority in an election is more than half of the total votes cast for all the candidates for that particular office.

2. Absolute majority. Any number over fifty percent of the votes cast by all voters participating in a given election. A simple majority, in contrast, is any number over fifty percent of the votes cast on any single issue in an election, even though many voters who go to the polls may not vole on the speci­fic issue.

3. Plurality. A plurality consists of sufficient votes to win an election, but not necessarily a majority. It is an excess of votes over the number for the next opponent. Most American electoral laws for national, state and local elections provide for winning by a plurality vote.

4. The direct primary was instituted in the early twentieth cen­tury largely as a reform to clean up politics by wrestling pow­er from political machines, but new techniques were deve­loped by the bosses to control primaries.

5. Presidential primaries. The election of delegates to a major party's national convention. About one third of the States hold some form of presidential primary in the weeks and months pre­ceding the conventions; delegates are selected in the other States by political party conventions or committees. Dele­gates selected in the primaries may or may not be "pledged" to vote for a presidential aspirant. In a few States delegates are selected by the party organization but are bound to sup­port the candidates designated by the voters in a so-called popularity contest.