So here we are at the most crucial moment
of the year because we are going to find out
who is going to be the new President of the
nation.
So let's look at the ballot box that we have
here and let's see who gets the most number
of votes.
The first vote goes to Marcus.
The second vote goes to Hillary; the third
vote goes to Margaret.
It's getting more and more interesting.
The fourth vote is for Donald.
The fifth vote is for Will and here we have
the decisive vote, the final vote which goes
to Marcus and it is Marcus who has received
who has received plurality and he is the new
President of the nation.
Has he got majority?
No he hasn't.
Find out the difference between plurality
and majority and other election words with
Michelle, that is me in this lesson.
So here we have some words with us on the
board as you can see it's a flow chart which
starts from constituents and leads to the
President and also we have another word called
polling here which leads to President.
So let's start with the first word here, constituents.
Yes that's how we pronounce this word; we
call it constituents and not constituents.
So the stress is on the part sti, constituents.
So who are constituents?
As you can see already it's a countable noun
because we have the letter, s.
So you can count the number of constituents
who are actually the voters.
People who vote.
So constituents are the voters, the overall
number of people who are voting in a particular
election.
Let's look at the next word that we have electorate.
Who is the electorate?
Do you think this is a countable noun like
constituents?
No, it's not; it's not an uncountable noun
because it's a collective noun.
So electorate refers to the body of constituents.
So when all the constituents which means all
the voters, all the parts they come together,
they form the electorate or the electoral
body which votes.
So actually the word electorate comes from
a Latin word called elector which means chooser
or voter.
So the body of constituents is called electorate.
Just to make it more clear to you, constituents
are the people who constitute the electorate
i.e. they are the part of the electorate.
Electorate is an overall body having many
constituents which is a countable noun and
this one is a collective noun.
So let's look at the next word that we have
and that is an electoral college.
So who does the electorate or the constituents
who do they vote for?
They vote for the Electoral College.
But what is the Electoral College?
That is a representative body.
A representative body.
So a representative body is a number of people
uhh..... for the US is particularly about
538 people who form the US congress and they
are voted by the constituents or the electorate,
they come together and vote for the Electoral
College which is the representative body in
the US having 538 members.
And this body of Electoral College is divided
into two parts.
The first part is the senate and the second
part is the House of Representatives.
The senate and the House of Representatives.
You must be thinking I'm talking about Electoral
College but I'm writing senate and House of
Representatives next to be bicameral.
That is because a kind of parliament or congress
that has two parts, it's called a bicameral
government or a bicameral parliament.
For example, the US and the UK, Britain as
well.
Both of these have two houses of parliament
and that's why they�re called bicameral
governments.
Bi as you must have guessed means two and
camera, this word means chamber in Latin.
So a government that has two parts is called
a bicameral government.
Is it too hard for you to remember?
Just remember of a fish, think of a fish.
A fish has a bicameral heart which means it
has two chambers unlike the human heart which
has four chambers.
So a fish has a bicameral heart and in the
same way the US and Britain have a bicameral
government.
At the end of this whole hierarchy of elections
we have the President and he is not actually
at the end, he is at the top.
So all these people, the constituents and
the Electoral College come together to vote
for the President.
Now let's look at the words that we have on
the other side.
These words talk about the process of voting.
The process of voting.
So the first word that we have with us is
called polling.
What is polling?
Polling is the process of voting, it's the
synonym for voting.
Polling means same as voting or casting votes.
Okay.
The next word that we with us is very specific
to the US.
Yes I'm mentioning US again and again because
we have the US elections coming in a month
and this vocabulary is surely gonna help you
there.
So precinct, that's how we pronounce this
word.
So precinct is a particular district specifically
for voting.
So the unit of voting or the district where
voting happens.
So a voting district.
The stress in this word is on pre.
So precinct is the voting district where you
have one polling place where all the people
come together and vote.
The next word that we have with us it's actually
an acronym which is DRE or EVM.
Okay so what is DRE or EVM?
Have you heard of these before?
These are the instruments or devices through
which you cast your vote or through which
you vote.
DRE is direct recording electronic voting
machine.
So direct recording electronic voting machine
is DRE or EVM and this is the more popular
voting system right now.
It's like the evolution of the process of
voting.
There was a time when people voted using these
ballot boxes which are used in the beginning
of the lesson, but you know these days, nobody
votes through the ballot boxes.
So these are apparently secret boxes and that�s
why you can see that it's coloured, it's opaque
and you can't see through it coz it's a secret
box.
But DRE is an electronic system where you
have a machine and you have push buttons.
So the machine directly records, your vote
and then you know the entire calculation happens
of the winner.
So direct recording, electronic voting machine.
So most of the people in the US use DRE for
casting their votes.
The next one we have is plurality, if you'd
remember I used this word in the beginning
of the video as well.
So plurality is another word for relative
majority if you go to UK or Britain.
You will often hear the word relative majority.
But if you go to the US, you'll hear plurality.
So this means same as relative majority and
not absolute majority.
So absolute majority is when let's say you
have six votes in hand and you have one person
Marcus winning four votes and the other candidates
win two more votes.
So in this case, Marcus has an absolute majority
because he has received the highest number
of votes.
As we saw in the beginning of the lesson that
out of six Marcus got two votes.
This is not more than the half but it's the
most number of votes compared to the other
candidates.
So when you get less than half but the most
number of votes that's when you receive plurality
which is different from absolute majority,
which is always more than the half.
So plurality is most number of votes but less
than half.
As you would have guessed plurality is always
possible when there are three or more candidates.
You cannot have plurality in two candidates
because there's nothing less than half there.
And finally at the end here as well, we come
back to the President who as you know the
winner, the final person who is going to run
the democracy or the country.
So here are the words for election.
The words that fit the bill and you can use
these words to talk about the elections that
are coming now next month in the US and worldwide
also you can use these words to talk about
elections.
I hope this lesson was fun for you and not
another political science school lesson.
So I'm glad you joined me.
Please come back for more lessons with me.
