In 1852, four years after the abolition of the third monarchy

I picked C since I thought the 19% of the eligible voters (which would be a fraction of French population) make a minority, which abstained from voting in 1852.

Were we supposed to interpret "minority" in some other way?

Confused about the question. Isn't the answer supposed to be something we can explicitly infer from the given information? In line with that, shouldn't the answer be A or C?

GMATNinja, Can you please explain this question?

Focusing word ' eligible ' we cannot conclude our thoughts for majority or minority citizens ... Might be out 100 only 50 people were allowed to vote ..... Correct me if I am wrong..

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In 1852, four years after the abolition of the third monarchy and the restoration of democracy, French voters were asked to overturn the republic in favor of the Second French Empire with Napoleon III at its head. Only 19 percent of the eligible voting population abstained; for the rest, the "Yes" vote was nearly unanimous.

The above information supports which of the following conclusions definitively?

A. In 1852, a majority of the French people wanted a return to the empire.
B. An electorate will sometimes democratically abolish a republic.
C. A minority of the French people abstained from voting in 1852
D. The democracy established in 1848 was meant to be provisional.
E. The Second French Empire was only a capitalization on the name "Napoleon

What about C --> logic : french people eligible for voting is less than or equal to the the total french population. Therefore, 19% which is minority of eligible voters will definitely be also a minority in the entire population.

Expert comments pls

I also had the same reasoning. Also, doesn't the language 'will sometimes' indicate future and hence is incorrect in this context?
Would like to hear an expert's opinion.

Argument says that "eligible voting population" we don't know how many were eligible? may be 30 out of 100 or what if 99 out of 100 are eligible? when we are given percentage but nothing about total population we cant assume majority or minority and for that reason i ruled out A and C
D and E isnt given in argument so its straight B

According to me, C isn't right. The argument states that 19% clearly abstained from voting. However, it assumes that the for the rest 81%, "yes" is unanimous.

GMATNinja VeritasKarishma

Not sure how C is wrong?....

A is wrong, since we only know that out of all French people, the ELIGIBLE ones wanted a return of the empire, not the majority of the population as a whole.

C is wrong, since it says "...for the rest, the "Yes" vote was NEARLY unanimous, thus the minority of the French people voted against the overturn of the republic.

D and E are unrelated and cannot be established definitely.

GMATNinja VeritasKarishma

19 percent of the eligible voting population abstained...
19 percent of the eligible voting population implies an even smaller percent of the total population....
So whats wrong in saying the minority of voting population abstained from voting?

What is the source of this question? I don't see anything wrong in (C) either.

You are correct. The answer should be inferred from the question, however, A and C necessarily do not result from the stem.

It generalizes the majority of French population with the eligible population. We do not know whether all the people above 18 were allowed to vote. Probably only the male aristocrats were allowed to vote, who could comprise less than 10% of the population and probably could have some vested interest in monarchy. Probably 90% of the population wanted democracy.

Options A and C do not take that into consideration.

We can only infer B directly from the passage that in that "democracy", a republic can be overthrown to form a monarchy.

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It seems to me that the only reason C would be wrong is if the term “French people” did not necessarily equate to people living in France? Or that the “eligible voters” group included a lot of people who weren’t French. Is that a correct analysis?

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