Election

An election is a formal group decision-making process by

which a population chooses an individual or multiple
individuals to hold public office.

Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern

representative democracy has operated since the 17th
century.[1] Elections may fill offices in the legislature,
sometimes in the executive and judiciary, and for regional
A ballot box used in France
and local government. This process is also used in many
other private and business organisations, from clubs to
voluntary associations and corporations.

The global use of elections as a tool for selecting representatives in modern representative
democracies is in contrast with the practice in the democratic archetype, ancient Athens,
where the elections were considered an oligarchic institution and most political offices were
filled using sortition, also known as allotment, by which officeholders were chosen by lot.[1]

Electoral reform describes the process of introducing fair electoral systems where they are not
in place, or improving the fairness or effectiveness of existing systems. Psephology is the study
of results and other statistics relating to elections (especially with a view to predicting future
results). Election is the fact of electing, or being elected.

To elect means "to select or make a decision", and so sometimes other forms of ballot such as
referendums are referred to as elections, especially in the United States.

History
Elections were used as early
in history as ancient Greece
and ancient Rome, and
throughout the Medieval
period to select rulers such
as the Holy Roman Emperor
(see imperial election) and A British election campaign leaflet
the pope (see papal with an illustration of an example
election). [2] ballot paper, 1880

The Pala King Gopala (ruled

c. 750s – 770s CE) in early medieval Bengal was elected by a
Roman coin depicting election group of feudal chieftains. Such elections were quite common
in contemporary societies of the region.[3][4] In the Chola
Empire, around 920 CE, in Uthiramerur (in present-day Tamil Nadu), palm leaves were used
for selecting the village committee members. The leaves, with candidate names written on
them, were put inside a mud pot. To select the committee members, a young boy was asked to
take out as many leaves as the number of positions available. This was known as the
Kudavolai system.[5][6]

The first recorded popular elections of officials to public office, by majority vote, where all
citizens were eligible both to vote and to hold public office, date back to the Ephors of Sparta
in 754 BC, under the mixed government of the Spartan Constitution.[7][8] Athenian democratic
elections, where all citizens could hold public office, were not introduced for another 247
years, until the reforms of Cleisthenes.[9] Under the earlier Solonian Constitution (c. 574 BC),
all Athenian citizens were eligible to vote in the popular assemblies, on matters of law and
policy, and as jurors, but only the three highest classes of citizens could vote in elections. Nor
were the lowest of the four classes of Athenian citizens (as defined by the extent of their
wealth and property, rather than by birth) eligible to hold public office, through the reforms of
Solon.[10][11] The Spartan election of the Ephors, therefore, also predates the reforms of Solon
in Athens by approximately 180 years.[12]

Questions of suffrage, especially suffrage for minority groups,

have dominated the history of elections. Males, the dominant
cultural group in North America and Europe, often
dominated the electorate and continue to do so in many
countries.[2] Early elections in countries such as the United
Kingdom and the United States were dominated by landed or
ruling class males.[2] However, by 1920 all Western European In 1946 Mannerheim resigned as
and North American democracies had universal adult male president of Finland, and the
suffrage (except Switzerland) and many countries began to parliament of Finland elected
consider women's suffrage.[2] Despite legally mandated elected prime minister Paasikivi to
succeed him, with 159 votes.
universal suffrage for adult males, political barriers were
sometimes erected to prevent fair access to elections (see civil
rights movement).[2]

Contexts of elections
Elections are held in a variety of political, organizational, and corporate settings. Many
countries hold elections to select people to serve in their governments, but other types of
organizations hold elections as well. For example, many corporations hold elections among
shareholders to select a board of directors, and these elections may be mandated by corporate
law.[13] In many places, an election to the government is usually a competition among people
who have already won a primary election within a political party.[14] Elections within
corporations and other organizations often use procedures and rules that are similar to those
of governmental elections.[15]

Electorate

Suffrage
The question of who may vote is a central issue in elections. The electorate does not generally
include the entire population; for example, many countries prohibit those who are under the
age of majority from voting. All jurisdictions require a minimum age for voting.

In Australia, Aboriginal people were not given the right to vote until 1962 (see 1967
referendum entry) and in 2010 the federal government removed the rights of prisoners
serving for three years or more to vote (a large proportion of which were Aboriginal
Australians).

Suffrage is typically only for citizens of the country, though further limits may be imposed.

However, in the European Union, one can vote in municipal elections if one lives in the
municipality and is an EU citizen; the nationality of the country of residence is not required.

In some countries, voting is required by law. Eligible voters

may be subject to punitive measures such as a fine for not
casting a vote. In Western Australia, the penalty for a first
time offender failing to vote is a $20.00 fine, which increases
to $50.00 if the offender refused to vote prior.[16]

Voting population
Campaigners working on posters in
Historically the size of eligible voters, the electorate, was Milan, Italy, 2004
small having the size of groups or communities of privileged
men like aristocrats and men of a city (citizens).

With the growth of the number of people with bourgeois citizen rights outside of cities,
expanding the term citizen, the electorates grew to numbers beyond the thousands. Elections
with an electorate in the hundred thousands appeared in the final decades of the Roman
Republic, by extending voting rights to citizens outside of Rome with the Lex Julia of 90 BC,
reaching an electorate of 910,000 and estimated voter turnout of maximum 10% in 70 BC,[17]
only again comparable in size to the first elections of the United States. At the same time the
Kingdom of Great Britain had in 1780 about 214,000 eligible voters, 3% of the whole
population.[18]

Candidates
A representative democracy requires a procedure to govern nomination for political office. In
many cases, nomination for office is mediated through preselection processes in organized
political parties.[19]

Non-partisan systems tend to be different from partisan systems as concerns nominations. In

a direct democracy, one type of non-partisan democracy, any eligible person can be
nominated. Although elections were used in ancient Athens, in Rome, and in the selection of
popes and Holy Roman emperors, the origins of elections in the contemporary world lie in the
gradual emergence of representative government in Europe and North America beginning in
the 17th century. In some systems no nominations take place at all, with voters free to choose
any person at the time of voting—with some possible exceptions such as through a minimum
age requirement—in the jurisdiction. In such cases, it is not required (or even possible) that
the members of the electorate be familiar with all of the eligible persons, though such systems
may involve indirect elections at larger geographic levels to ensure that some first-hand
familiarity among potential electees can exist at these levels (i.e., among the elected delegates).

Electoral systems
Electoral systems are the detailed
constitutional arrangements and
voting systems that convert the vote
into a political decision.

The first step is for voters to cast the

ballots, which may be simple single-
choice ballots, but other types, such
as multiple choice or ranked ballots
may also be used. Then the votes are
tallied, for which various vote Map showing the main types electoral systems used to elect
counting systems may be used. and candidates to the lower or sole (unicameral) house of national
the voting system then determines legislatures, as of January 2022:
the result on the basis of the tally. Majoritarian representation (winner-take-all)
Most systems can be categorized as Proportional representation
either proportional, majoritarian or Mixed-member majoritarian representation
mixed. Among the proportional Mixed-member proportional representation
systems, the most commonly used are Semi-proportional representation (non-mixed)
party-list proportional representation No election (e.g. Monarchy)
(list PR) systems, among majoritarian
are first-past-the-post electoral system
(single winner plurality voting) and different methods of majority voting (such as the widely
used two-round system). Mixed systems combine elements of both proportional and
majoritarian methods, with some typically producing results closer to the former (mixed-
member proportional) or the other (e.g. parallel voting).
Many countries have growing electoral reform movements, which advocate systems such as
approval voting, single transferable vote, instant runoff voting or a Condorcet method; these
methods are also gaining popularity for lesser elections in some countries where more
important elections still use more traditional counting methods.

While openness and accountability are usually considered cornerstones of a democratic

system, the act of casting a vote and the content of a voter's ballot are usually an important
exception. The secret ballot is a relatively modern development, but it is now considered
crucial in most free and fair elections, as it limits the effectiveness of intimidation.

Campaigns
When elections are called, politicians and their supporters attempt to influence policy by
competing directly for the votes of constituents in what are called campaigns. Supporters for a
campaign can be either formally organized or loosely affiliated, and frequently utilize
campaign advertising. It is common for political scientists to attempt to predict elections via
political forecasting methods.

The most expensive election campaign included US$7 billion spent on the 2012 United States
presidential election and is followed by the US$5 billion spent on the 2014 Indian general
election.[20]

Election timing
The nature of democracy is that elected officials are accountable to the people, and they must
return to the voters at prescribed intervals to seek their mandate to continue in office. For that
reason, most democratic constitutions provide that elections are held at fixed regular
intervals. In the United States, elections for public offices are typically held between every two
and six years in most states and at the federal level, with exceptions for elected judicial
positions that may have longer terms of office. There is a variety of schedules, for example,
presidents: the President of Ireland is elected every seven years, the President of Russia and
the President of Finland every six years, the President of France every five years, President of
the United States every four years.

Pre-decided or fixed election dates have the advantage of fairness and predictability. However,
they tend to greatly lengthen campaigns, and make dissolving the legislature (parliamentary
system) more problematic if the date should happen to fall at a time when dissolution is
inconvenient (e.g. when war breaks out). Other states (e.g., the United Kingdom) only set
maximum time in office, and the executive decides exactly when within that limit it will
actually go to the polls. In practice, this means the government remains in power for close to
its full term, and chooses an election date it calculates to be in its best interests (unless
something special happens, such as a motion of no-confidence). This calculation depends on a
number of variables, such as its performance in opinion polls and the size of its majority.

Rolling elections are elections in which all representatives in a body are elected, but these
elections are spread over a period of time rather than all at once. Examples are the
presidential primaries in the United States, Elections to the European Parliament (where, due
to differing election laws in each member state, elections are held on different days of the
same week) and, due to logistics, general elections in Lebanon and India. The voting
procedure in the Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Republic are also a classical example.

In rolling elections, voters have information about previous voters' choices. While in the first
elections, there may be plenty of hopeful candidates, in the last rounds consensus on one
winner is generally achieved. In today's context of rapid communication, candidates can put
disproportionate resources into competing strongly in the first few stages, because those
stages affect the reaction of latter stages.

Non-democratic elections
In many of the countries with weak rule of law, the
most common reason why elections do not meet
international standards of being "free and fair" is
interference from the incumbent government.
Dictators may use the powers of the executive
(police, martial law, censorship, physical
implementation of the election mechanism, etc.) to
remain in power despite popular opinion in favour
of removal. Members of a particular faction in a
legislature may use the power of the majority or
supermajority (passing criminal laws, and defining Buenos Aires 1892: "The rival voters were kept
the electoral mechanisms including eligibility and back by an armed force of police out of sight to
district boundaries) to prevent the balance of others. Only batches of two or three were allowed
power in the body from shifting to a rival faction to enter the polling office at a time. Armed
due to an election.[2] sentries guarded the gates and the doors."
Godefroy Durand, The Graphic, 21 May 1892.
Non-governmental entities can also interfere with
elections, through physical force, verbal
intimidation, or fraud, which can result in improper casting or counting of votes. Monitoring
for and minimizing electoral fraud is also an ongoing task in countries with strong traditions
of free and fair elections. Problems that prevent an election from being "free and fair" take
various forms.[21]

Lack of open political debate or an informed electorate

The electorate may be poorly informed about issues or candidates due to lack of freedom of
the press, lack of objectivity in the press due to state or corporate control, and/or lack of access
to news and political media. Freedom of speech may be curtailed by the state, favouring
certain viewpoints or state propaganda.

Unfair rules
Gerrymandering, exclusion of opposition candidates from eligibility for office, needlessly high
restrictions on who may be a candidate, like ballot access rules, and manipulating thresholds
for electoral success are some of the ways the structure of an election can be changed to
favour a specific faction or candidate. Scheduling frequent elections can also lead to voter
fatigue.

Interference with campaigns

Those in power may arrest or assassinate candidates, suppress or even criminalize
campaigning, close campaign headquarters, harass or beat campaign workers, or intimidate
voters with violence. Foreign electoral intervention can also occur, with the United States
interfering between 1946 and 2000 in 81 elections and Russia/USSR in 36.[22] In 2018 the most
intense interventions, utilizing false information, were by China in Taiwan and by Russia in
Latvia; the next highest levels were in Bahrain, Qatar and Hungary.[23]

Tampering with the election mechanism

This can include falsifying voter instructions,[24] violation of the secret ballot, ballot stuffing,
tampering with voting machines,[25] destruction of legitimately cast ballots,[26] voter
suppression, voter registration fraud, failure to validate voter residency, fraudulent tabulation
of results, and use of physical force or verbal intimation at polling places. Other examples
include persuading candidates not to run, such as through blackmailing, bribery, intimidation
or physical violence.

Sham election
A sham election, or show election, is an election that is held purely for show; that is, without
any significant political choice or real impact on the results of the election.[27]

Sham elections are a common event in dictatorial regimes that feel the need to feign the
appearance of public legitimacy. Published results usually show nearly 100% voter turnout
and high support (typically at least 80%, and close to 100% in many cases) for the prescribed
candidate(s) or for the referendum choice that favours the political party in power. Dictatorial
regimes can also organize sham elections with results simulating those that might be achieved
in democratic countries.[28]

Sometimes, only one government-approved candidate is allowed to run in sham elections with
no opposition candidates allowed, or opposition candidates are arrested on false charges (or
even without any charges) before the election to prevent them from running.[29][30][31]

Ballots may contain only one "yes" option, or in the case of a simple "yes or no" question,
security forces often persecute people who pick "no", thus encouraging them to pick the "yes"
option. In other cases, those who vote receive stamps in their passport for doing so, while
those who did not vote (and thus do not receive stamps) are persecuted as enemies of the
people.[32][33]
Sham elections can sometimes backfire against the party in power, especially if the regime
believes they are popular enough to win without coercion, fraud or suppressing the
opposition. The most famous example of this was the 1990 Myanmar general election, in
which the government-sponsored National Unity Party suffered a landslide defeat by the
opposition National League for Democracy and consequently, the results were annulled.[34]

Examples of sham elections include: the presidential and

parliamentary elections of the Islamic Republic of Iran,[35]
the 1929 and 1934 elections in Fascist Italy, the 1942 general
election in Imperial Japan, those in Nazi Germany, East
Germany, the 1940 elections of Stalinist "People's
Parliaments" to legitimise the Soviet occupation of Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania, those in Egypt under Gamal Abdel
Nasser, Anwar Sadat, Hosni Mubarak, and Mohamed Morsi,
those in Bangladesh under Sheikh Hasina, those in Russia A ballot from the 1936 elections in
Nazi Germany
under Vladimir Putin (including the 2014 Crimean status
referendum, as well as the 2014 Donbass status referendums
and the 2022 annexation referendum in Russian-occupied
Ukraine),[36] the 2018 Venezuelan presidential election, the
1928, 1935, 1942, 1949, 1951 and 1958 elections in Portugal,
those in Indonesia during New Order regime, the 1991 and
2019 Kazakh presidential elections, those in North Korea,[37]
the 1995 and 2002 presidential referendums in Saddam
Hussein's Iraq.

In Mexico, all of the presidential elections from 1929 to 1982 A ballot from the 1938 elections in
are considered to be sham elections, as the Institutional Nazi Germany asking voters to
Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its predecessors governed the approve the new Reichstag and the
country in a de facto single-party system without serious Anschluss. The "no" box was made
opposition, and they won all of the presidential elections in significantly smaller than the "yes"
box.
that period with more than 70% of the vote. The first
seriously competitive presidential election in modern
Mexican history was that of 1988, in which for the first time the PRI candidate faced two
strong opposition candidates, though it is believed that the government rigged the result. The
first fair election was held in 1994, though the opposition did not win until 2000.

A predetermined conclusion is permanently established by the regime through suppression of

the opposition, coercion of voters, vote rigging, reporting several votes received greater than
the number of voters, outright lying, or some combination of these. In an extreme example,
Charles D. B. King of Liberia was reported to have won by 234,000 votes in the 1927 general
election, a "majority" that was over fifteen times larger than the number of eligible voters.[38]

Elections as aristocratic
Some scholars argue that the predominance of elections in modern liberal democracies masks
the fact that they are actually aristocratic selection mechanisms[39] that deny each citizen an
equal chance of holding public office. Such views were expressed as early as the time of
Ancient Greece by Aristotle.[39] According to French political scientist Bernard Manin, the
inegalitarian nature of elections stems from four factors: the unequal treatment of candidates
by voters, the distinction of candidates required by choice, the cognitive advantage conferred
by salience, and the costs of disseminating information.[40] These four factors result in the
evaluation of candidates based on voters' partial standards of quality and social saliency (for
example, skin colour and good looks). This leads to self-selection biases in candidate pools due
to unobjective standards of treatment by voters and the costs (barriers to entry) associated
with raising one's political profile. Ultimately, the result is the election of candidates who are
superior (whether in actuality or as perceived within a cultural context) and objectively unlike
the voters they are supposed to represent.[40]

Additionally, evidence suggests that the concept of electing representatives was originally
conceived to be different from democracy.[41] Prior to the 18th century, some societies in
Western Europe used sortition as a means to select rulers, a method which allowed regular
citizens to exercise power, in keeping with understandings of democracy at the time.[42]
However, the idea of what constituted a legitimate government shifted in the 18th century to
include consent, especially with the rise of the enlightenment. From this point onwards,
sortition fell out of favor as a mechanism for selecting rulers. On the other hand, elections
began to be seen as a way for the masses to express popular consent repeatedly, resulting in
the triumph of the electoral process until the present day.[43]

This conceptual misunderstanding of elections as open and egalitarian when they are not
innately so may thus be a root cause of the problems in contemporary governance.[44] Those
in favor of this view argue that the modern system of elections was never meant to give
ordinary citizens the chance to exercise power - merely privileging their right to consent to
those who rule.[45] Therefore, the representatives that modern electoral systems select for are
too disconnected, unresponsive, and elite-serving.[46][47][48][49] To deal with this issue, various
scholars have proposed alternative models of democracy, many of which include a return to
sortition-based selection mechanisms. The extent to which sortition should be the dominant
mode of selecting rulers[47] or instead be hybridised with electoral representation[50] remains
a topic of debate.

See also
Ballot access Elections by country
Concession (politics) Electronic voting
Demarchy — "democracy without elections" Fenno's paradox
Electoral calendar Full slate
Electoral integrity Garrat Elections
Electoral system Gerontocracy
Election law Issue voting
Election litter Landslide election
 Meritocracy Proportional representation
Multi-party system Re-election
Nomination rules Slate
Party system Stunning elections
Pluralism (political philosophy) Two-party system
Political polarization Voter turnout
Political science Voting system
Polling station

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05/26/burma-20-years-after-1990-elections-democracy-still-denied). Human Rights Watch. 26 May
2010. Retrieved 14 July 2018.
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First Century. Princeton University Press. pp. xiv. ISBN 978-0691181998.
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Elisabeth Jean; Kirshner, Alexander S. (eds.). Political Representation. Cambridge University Press.
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Bibliography
Arrow, Kenneth J. 1963. Social Choice and Individual Values. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Benoit, Jean-Pierre and Lewis A. Kornhauser. 1994. "Social Choice in a Representative
Democracy". American Political Science Review 88.1: 185–192.
Corrado Maria, Daclon. 2004. US Elections and War On Terrorism – Interview With Professor
Massimo Teodori Analisi Difesa, n. 50
Farquharson, Robin. 1969. A Theory of Voting. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Mueller, Dennis C. 1996. Constitutional Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Owen, Bernard, 2002. "Le système électoral et son effet sur la représentation parlementaire des
partis: le cas européen", LGDJ;
Riker, William. 1980. Liberalism Against Populism: A Confrontation Between the Theory of
Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
Thompson, Dennis F. 2004. Just Elections: Creating a Fair Electoral Process in the U.S. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226797649
Ware, Alan. 1987. Citizens, Parties and the State. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

External links
"Election" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Election).
Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 9 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 169–172.

Election counts

PARLINE database on national parliaments. Results for all parliamentary elections since 1966 (htt
p://www.ipu.org/parline-e/parlinesearch.asp)
"Psephos", archive of recent electoral data from 182 countries (http://psephos.adam-carr.net/)
ElectionGuide.org — Worldwide Coverage of National-level Elections (http://www.electionguide.or
g)
parties-and-elections.de: Database for all European elections since 1945 (https://web.archive.org/
web/20191012214801/http://parties-and-elections.de/)
Angus Reid Global Monitor: Election Tracker (https://web.archive.org/web/20060108113500/htt
p://www.angus-reid.com/tracker/)

Election organizations

ACE Electoral Knowledge Network (http://www.aceproject.org) — electoral encyclopedia and

related resources from a consortium of electoral agencies and organizations.
International Foundation for Electoral Systems (https://www.ifes.org/)
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (https://www.idea.int)
European Conferences of Electoral Management Bodies (Council of Europe) (https://www.coe.int/
 en/web/electoral-management-bodies-conference)
OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) (https://www.osce.org/odihr/
elections)
European Election Law Association (Eurela) (https://web.archive.org/web/20070427195545/htt
p://www.eurela.org/), closed in 2008
List of Local Elected Offices in the United States (http://www.killercampaigning.com/local-election
s-list-political-campaign-candidate-offices/) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20160402070
734/http://www.killercampaigning.com/local-elections-list-political-campaign-candidate-offices/)
2 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine
Caltech/ MIT Voting Technology Project (http://www.vote.caltech.edu/)

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