Question

In an election, candidate A got 70% of the total valid votes. 20% of the total votes were declared invalid. If the total number of votes is 600000, find the number of valid votes polled in favor of the candidate?
(a) 336000
(b) 420000
(c) 35000
(d) 75823

Answer 1

Hint:The total number of votes is 600000. The total invalid votes are 20% of 600000 which is 120000 votes. Now, candidate A got 70% of 600000 so find the 70% of 600000. As we have to find the valid votes in favor of the candidate so subtract the invalid votes i.e. 120000 from the result of the 70% of 600000.

Complete step-by-step answer:
The total number of votes given is equal to 600000.
It is given that 20% of the total votes are invalid so the total number of invalid votes is equal to:
  $ \dfrac{20}{100}\left( 600000 \right)=120000 $
From the above calculation, the total number of invalid votes is 120000.
So, the total valid votes are the subtraction of the invalid votes from the total votes which is equal to:
  $ \begin{align}
  & 600000-120000 \\
 & =480000 \\
\end{align} $
It is also given that the candidate A got 70% of the total valid votes so the number of valid votes got by A is equal to:
  $ \begin{align}
  & \dfrac{70}{100}\left( 480000 \right) \\
 & =336000 \\
\end{align} $
From the above, candidate A got 336000 valid votes from 600000 votes.
Hence, the correct option is (a).

Note: In the hastiness of solving the above problem, you might ignore the word valid votes and just jump to calculate the 70% of the total votes as the number of valid votes in favor of candidate A. Then your answer will be 420000 and you can find the option in the answer also so beware of making such mistake.