Question

A newspaper article reports the results of an election between two candidates. The article says that Smith received 60% of the votes and that Murphy received 1/4 of the votes. A reader writes in to complain that the article cannot be accurate. What reason might the reader have to say this?

Answer 1

60% and 1/4=25% do not equal 100%. There must have been another candidate.

Explanation:

If you change 1/4 to a percentage, it equals 25%. if there are only 2 candidates, then all the votes must equal 100%. 60% + 25% only equals 85%, so there needs to be another 15% for it to be accurate.