The Counting Rules

American government runs on a short list of numbers, and knowing the list is knowing where power actually sits.

Walk the list from easiest to hardest. A plurality — most votes, maybe no majority — wins most American elections (Gov 213). A simple majority passes a bill through a chamber and impeaches in the House (Gov 363). Three-fifths of the Senate, sixty votes, ends debate — a chamber rule, not constitutional text, as the twin at Gov 330 proved with the 1975 rules change (Gov 329). Two-thirds appears wherever the framers wanted an act to be rare: overriding a veto (Gov 331), ratifying a treaty — sixty-seven senators (Gov 360), convicting on impeachment (Gov 363), proposing an amendment (Gov 039). Three-fourths of the states — thirty-eight — ratifies one (Gov 040). Two hundred seventy of five hundred thirty-eight elects a president (Gov 215). And four of nine puts a case on the Supreme Court's docket (Gov 423). Every number on the list was recomputed in the course's D-row record — the receipts exist. The lesson underneath: the size of the required coalition is the design's dial, and where the framers set the dial high is the map of what they wanted hard to do. One coalition size never appears on the list: unanimity — the Articles of Confederation required it, and Gov 024's record shows what that cost.