In an election, Candidate A received 70% of the total votes cast

(A) The public has been opposed to some of the policies of candidate B. - very generic
(B) Candidate A had recently been in the news because of his involvement in a corruption scandal.irrelevant
(C) Most of candidate B’s supporters are factory workers whose work shift time clashes with the time of the day when election votes can be cast. Correct as B's supporters might not have been part of the voters
(D) The voting was conducted in an extremely fair manner with no incidents of cheating reported from anywhere. irrelevant. if unfair then it will explain the reason
(E) Candidate A spent more time canvassing for votes than did Candidate B. Irrelevant

The right answer here is C. This is a "resolve the paradox" question so we must first find out what the paradox is. The question stem helps us out here, telling us that the paradox is that Candidate B lost the election despite being more popular. So what we want is something that explains why B got fewer votes, or why A got more votes, all without impacting popularity itself.

A - If that were the case, then either enough people are against the policy, making her unpopular, or just a few are, and it's not enough to explain why she got just 30% then. OUT

B - If so, then A should be even less popular and B should win. We want how B lost despite being more popular. OUT

C - This provides a proper explanation. Candidate B is very popular, but people can't actually vote for her because of their work-timings. This gives us a reason for why Candidate B might have lost despite being more popular, thereby resolving the paradox.

D - This adds no new dimension to the argument. OUT

E - This could be a possible reason for why A did better than B, but it would also make A more popular. If he spent more time canvassing, he got his name out there. This would impact vote share, but along with popularity, and we want to decouple the two. OUT

- Matoo
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Official Explanation

Answer: C

The discrepancy in the argument is the fact that even though B is much more popular with the public, he only got 30% of the votes in the election while his rival got the remaining 70% of the votes despite being less popular. C explains this fact by pointing out one reason because of which Candidate B’s supporters may not have been able to vote at al.

(A) Yet, Candidate B is more popular than Candidate A, so why didn’t he win?

(B) Even more surprising how candidate A won then.

(C) The correct answer.

(D) This doesn’t explain the discrepancy.

(E) But Candidate B was more popular, then why didn’t he win?
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