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Our students are often asked to describe a chart for their online classes. We have to ask follow-up or guide questions to help them describe it and I often ask my students about how many votes did an item in the chart get. So, is it incorrect to say:
"How many percent of votes did Sheriff Woody get?"
The correct wording is "What percentage of votes..."
This is because a percentage is a singular item. It is one percentage no matter what the number in the percentage is. 1% is a percentage, 50% is a percentage, and so on.
So when you're referring to a percentage, you say what to signal a singular item instead of how many which signals multiple items.
