election_title: A 41% winner that nothing spoiled — sub-majority is not the same as split
scenario_description: |-
  The counter-example to the "winner under 50% = vote split election" test.

  44 residents pick the tree for the new Main Street: Aspen, Birch, Cedar.
  Under Choose-One the first choices are Aspen 18 (41%), Birch 14, Cedar 12.
  The winner is well under half, and the two losers combined (26) are a
  majority — so by the usual screening rule this race counts as a "vote split
  election."

  But read the whole ballot and nothing was split at all. Aspen leads the
  scoring round (180), wins the automatic runoff over Birch 30-14, beats BOTH
  rivals head-to-head (the Condorcet winner), and also wins under RCV-IRV once
  Cedar's ballots transfer. Every method agrees: Aspen is the majority's
  genuine choice, who simply led a three-way field without clearing 50% of
  FIRST choices.

  The lesson: a sub-majority plurality winner means the race was EXPOSED to
  vote splitting, not that vote splitting changed the outcome. Telling the two
  apart needs preference data — exactly what a one-mark ballot never collects.
  Compare 01_political_left_split.yaml, where the same 41%-ish arithmetic DOES
  hide a flipped result.

voting_method: STAR
num_winners: 1

ballots: |-
  Count:Aspen,Birch,Cedar
  18:5,4,0   # Aspen first, Birch a close second
  14:3,5,1   # Birch first, Aspen acceptable
  12:4,0,5   # Cedar first, Aspen the clear second

expected_winners:
  - Aspen

# file: 06_sub_majority_not_spoiled.yaml