Star Telegram
Originally posted- November 3, 2014
No do-overs: Winners take all in Tuesday’s election.
Whoever gets the most votes wins — a majority is not required.
That’s what voters need to remember about Tuesday’s general election in Texas.
“It’s the first past the post,” said Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, an associate political science professor at the University of North Texas in Denton. “Most people don’t know that.
“But for a lot of reasons, [a majority] just doesn’t matter,” he said. “We have two competitive parties, and most people split between those parties. But there are some situations where it differs.”
Unlike in Texas primaries, where candidates must pick up 50 percent of the votes to win, candidates on the general election ballot simply need a plurality — the most votes — to win.
Several Texans in recent years — from then-Gov. George W. Bush seeking a first term in the White House to Gov. Rick Perry seeking another term in the governor’s mansion to Fort Worth’s Wendy Davis making a bid for the state Senate — have been among those to not hit the 50 percent mark.
“That’s the exception to the rule,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “Most of the time, one candidate or the other gets a majority.”
But if they don’t, they still win in November.
The good news is that the lack of runoffs for the general election means that an already long political season — which has seen Texas’ gubernatorial candidates campaigning for more than a year — will once and for all end Tuesday.
Voting runs from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.