Spokesperson: In the 2006 election of the city mayor, 55% of the voter

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

This argument essentially asks us to find a conclusion that must be true based on the facts presented by the spokesperson. When you analyze the answer choices, remember that the correct answer to questions of this type must be the claim that does not require any additional assumptions.

(A) This statement does not have to be true, since the female voters represented only slightly more than a half of the electorate. For example, the mayor would be able to receive 2/3 of all voters if he received all the votes of the male voters (i.e. 45%) and just some substantial portion of the female voters (say 40%).

(B) This statement does not have to be true. For example, the incumbent mayor could have received the vast majority of the male votes and a smaller share of the female votes.

(C) Since the incumbent mayor received 2/3 (i.e. approximately 67%) of the votes, the maximum number of votes received by any other candidate could have been around 33%, which is still substantially less than the number of votes received by the incumbent mayor. Since we do not know how many candidates participated in the election and the proportion of votes received by each candidate, we cannot conclude that no other candidate received more than 30% of all votes.

(D) CORRECT. Since 55% of the voters were female, the remaining 45% were male; also, since all the voters were between ages 18 and 70, no voters, either male or female, could have been 75 years old. This answer choice does not require any additional assumptions and therefore must be true.

(E) Even if the proportion of the male and female voters remains the same, their preferences may change substantially and there is no guarantee that they will vote in the same way in the next election.