A voting system is a process that allows a group of people to express their desires about a number of options, and selects one or more of those options as the winner based on the votes. Voting is best known for its use in democratic elections, in which case the options are candidates for public office, and the preferences of the citizens determine who gets to hold those offices. Specifically, a voting system is a well-defined method (an algorithm) that determines a winning result given a set of votes. The process must be formally defined to be considered a voting system; the rules that specify how the votes will be counted must be known beforehand. This can be contrasted with consensus decision making, another process for selecting an option based on people's preferences which, unlike a voting system, does not specify a precise way to determine the winning option. Most voting systems are based on the concept of majority rule, or the principle that a group of more than half of the voters should be able to get the outcome they want. Given the simplicity of majority rule, those who are unfamiliar with voting theory are often surprised that such a variety of voting systems exists.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1661: Thomas Venner and the Fifth Monarchists unsuccessfully attempted to seize control of London from the newly restored government of Charles II. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Monarchists)

1838: Samuel Morse successfully tested the electrical telegraph for the first time. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/electrical_telegraph)

1907: Maria Montessori opened her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori)

1995: A suspicious fire in a Manila flat led to the unfoiling of Oplan Bojinka, a precursor to the September 11, 2001 attacks. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oplan_Bojinka)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

"In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want... everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear... anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt)