Plurality (voting) in the context of "First-past-the-post voting"

Plurality voting is an electoral system in which the candidates in an electoral district who poll more than any other (that is, receive a plurality or relative majority) are elected.

Under single-winner plurality voting, and in systems based on single-member districts, plurality voting is called single member [district] plurality (SMP), which is occasionally known as "first-past-the-post". In plurality voting the leading candidate, whether or not they have a majority of votes, is elected. Under all but a few niche election systems, the most-popular are elected. But under systems that use ranked votes, vote tallies change and are compared at various times during the vote count process. Where votes are transferred, the system is not generally referred to as a plurality system.

Proportional representation (PR) is achieved by any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (political parties) among voters.

The term is also used for any of the various electoral systems that produce proportional representation. The aim of such systems is that all votes cast contribute to the result so that each representative in an assembly is mandated by a roughly equal number of voters, and therefore all votes have equal weight. Under other election systems, a slight majority in a district – or even simply a plurality – is all that is needed to elect a member or group of members. PR systems provide balanced representation to different factions, usually defined by parties, reflecting how votes were cast. Where only a choice of parties is allowed, the seats are allocated to parties in proportion to the vote tally or vote share each party receives.

There have been five United States presidential elections in which the successful presidential candidate did not receive a plurality of the popular vote, including the 1824 election, which was the first U.S. presidential election where the popular vote was recorded. In these cases, the successful candidate secured less of the national popular vote than another candidate who received more votes, either a majority, more than half the vote, or a plurality of the vote.

In the U.S. presidential election system, instead of the nationwide popular vote determining the outcome of the election, the president of the United States is determined by votes cast by electors of the Electoral College. Alternatively, if no candidate receives an absolute majority of electoral votes, the election is determined by the House of Representatives. These procedures are governed by the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The U.S. Constitution does not require states to hold a popular vote, however, since 1880, electors in every state have been chosen based on a popular election held on Election Day.

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. He rose to fame as a U.S. Army general and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. His political philosophy, which dominated his presidency, became the basis for the rise of Jacksonian democracy. His legacy is controversial: he has been praised as an advocate for working Americans and preserving the union of states, and criticized for his racist policies, particularly towards Native Americans. He was also the founder of, and first president from, the Democratic Party, which dominates American politics to this day along with the Republican Party.

Jackson was born in the colonial Carolinas before the American Revolutionary War. He became a frontier lawyer and married Rachel Donelson Robards. He briefly served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, representing Tennessee. After resigning, he served as a justice on the Tennessee Superior Court from 1798 to 1804. He purchased a plantation later known as the Hermitage, becoming a wealthy planter who profited off the forced labor of hundreds of enslaved African Americans during his lifetime. In 1801, he was appointed colonel of the Tennessee militia and was elected its commander. He led troops during the Creek War of 1813–1814, winning the Battle of Horseshoe Bend and negotiating the Treaty of Fort Jackson that required the indigenous Creek population to surrender vast tracts of the present-day U.S. states of Alabama and Georgia. In the concurrent war against the British, Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 made him a national hero. He later commanded United States forces during the First Seminole War against the Seminoles and other allied Native groups. This campaign was one of the factors that prompted Spain to negotiate the cession of Florida to the United States, which was finalized in the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, in exchange for United States renunciation of territorial claims. He briefly served as Florida's first territorial governor before returning to the Senate. He ran for president in 1824. He won a plurality of the popular and electoral vote, but no candidate won the electoral majority. With the help of Henry Clay, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams as president. Jackson's supporters alleged that there was a "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Clay (who joined Adams' cabinet) and began creating a new political coalition that became the Democratic Party in the 1830s.