Given: In an election, a candidate secures 40% of the votes but is defeated by the only other candidate by a majority of 2980 votes. Calculations: Let the total votes polled be x other candidate got 60% of the votes. According to the question,(60 – 40)% of x = 2980 ⇒(20/100)×x=2980 ⇒x=2980×5=14900 ∴ the total number of votes recorded is 14900.