Election

"Elect" redirects here. For other uses, see-electandElection (disambiguation).

"Free election" redirects here. For the "free elections" of Polish kings, seeRoyal elections in Poland.

Aballot boxused inFrance

Anelectionis a formalgroup decision-makingprocess by which apopulationchooses an individual or multiple individuals to holdpublic office.

Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modernrepresentative democracyhas operated since the 17th century.Elections may fill offices in thelegislature,sometimes in theexecutiveandjudiciary,and forregional and local government.This process is also used in many other private andbusinessorganisations, from clubs tovoluntary associationsandcorporations.

The global use of elections as a tool for selecting representatives in modern representative democracies is in contrast with the practice in the democraticarchetype,ancientAthens,where the elections were considered anoligarchicinstitution and most political offices were filled usingsortition,also known as allotment, by which officeholders were chosen by lot.

Electoral reformdescribes the process of introducing fairelectoral systemswhere they are not in place, or improving the fairness or effectiveness of existing systems.Psephologyis the study of results and otherstatisticsrelating to elections (especially with a view to predicting future results). Election is the fact of electing, or being elected.

Toelectmeans "to select or make a decision", and so sometimes other forms of ballot such asreferendumsare referred to as elections, especially in theUnited States.

History

See also:History of democracy

Roman coindepicting election

A British election campaign leaflet with an illustration of an example ballot paper, 1880

Elections were used as early in history asancient Greeceandancient Rome,and throughout the Medieval period to select rulers such as theHoly Roman Emperor(seeimperial election) and thepope(seepapal election).

ThePalaKingGopala(ruledc. 750s– 770s CE) in early medievalBengalwas elected by a group of feudal chieftains. Such elections were quite common in contemporary societies of the region.In theChola Empire,around 920 CE, inUthiramerur(in present-dayTamil 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 theKudavolaisystem.

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 theEphorsofSpartain 754 BC, under themixed governmentof theSpartan Constitution.Atheniandemocratic elections, where all citizens could hold public office, were not introduced for another 247 years, until the reforms ofCleisthenes.Under the earlierSolonian 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 ofSolon.The Spartan election of the Ephors, therefore, also predates the reforms of Solon in Athens by approximately 180 years.

In 1946Mannerheimresigned as president of Finland, and theparliament of Finlandelectedelected prime ministerPaasikivito succeed him, with 159 votes.

Questions ofsuffrage,especially suffrage for minority groups, have dominated the history of elections. Males, the dominant cultural group in North America and Europe, often dominated theelectorateand continue to do so in many countries.Early elections in countries such as theUnited Kingdomandthe United Stateswere dominated bylandedorruling classmales.By 1920 all Western European and North American democracies had universal adult male suffrage (except Switzerland) and many countries began to considerwomen's suffrage.Despite legally mandated universal suffrage for adult males, political barriers were sometimes erected to prevent fair access to elections (seecivil rights movement).

Contexts

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 amongshareholdersto select aboard of directors,and these elections may be mandated bycorporate law.In many places, an election to the government is usually a competition among people who have already won aprimary electionwithin apolitical party.Elections within corporations and other organizations often use procedures and rules that are similar to those of governmental elections.

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 (see1967 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.

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.

Campaigners working on posters inMilan,Italy, 2004

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.

Voting population

Historically the size of eligible voters, the electorate, was small having the size of groups or communities of privileged men likearistocratsand men of a city (citizens).

With the growth of the number of people withbourgeoiscitizen 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 theRoman Republic,by extending voting rights to citizens outside of Rome with theLex Julia of 90 BC,reaching an electorate of 910,000 and estimatedvoter turnoutof maximum 10% in 70 BC,only again comparable in size to thefirst elections of the United States.At the same time theKingdom of Great Britainhad in 1780 about 214,000 eligible voters, 3% of the whole population.Naturalizationcan reshape the electorate of a country.

Candidates

Arepresentative democracyrequires a procedure to govern nomination for political office. In many cases, nomination for office is mediated throughpreselectionprocesses in organized political parties.

Non-partisan systems tend to be different from partisan systems as concerns nominations. In adirect democracy,one type ofnon-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).

Systems

Main article:Electoral system

Map showing the main types electoral systems used to elect candidates to theloweror sole (unicameral) house of national legislatures, as of January 2022:

Majoritarian representation(winner-take-all)

Proportional representation

Mixed-member majoritarian representation

Mixed-member proportional representation

Semi-proportional representation(non-mixed)

No election (e.g. Monarchy)

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 theballots,which may be simple single-choice ballots, but other types, such as multiple choice orranked ballotsmay also be used. Then the votes are tallied, for which variousvote counting systemsmay be used. and the voting system then determines the result on the basis of the tally. Most systems can be categorized as eitherproportional,majoritarianormixed.Among the proportional systems, the most commonly used areparty-list proportional representation(list PR) systems, among majoritarian arefirst-past-the-postelectoral system (single winnerplurality voting) and different methods of majority voting (such as the widely usedtwo-round system).Mixed systemscombine 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 asapproval voting,single transferable vote,instant runoff votingor aCondorcet 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 andaccountabilityare 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. Thesecret ballotis a relatively modern development, but it is now considered crucial in most free and fair elections, as it limits the effectiveness of intimidation.

Campaigns

Main article:Political campaign

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 utilizecampaign advertising.It is common for political scientists to attempt to predict elections viapolitical forecastingmethods.

The most expensive election campaign included US$7 billion spent on the2012 United States presidential electionand is followed by the US$5 billion spent on the2014 Indian general 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 theirmandateto 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: thePresident of Irelandis elected every seven years, thePresident of Russiaand thePresident of Finlandevery six years, thePresident of Franceevery five years,President of the United Statesevery four years.

Predetermined or fixed election dates have the advantage of fairness and predictability. They tend to greatly lengthen campaigns, and makedissolving 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., theUnited 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 amotion 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 electionsare elections in which allrepresentativesin a body are elected, but these elections are spread over a period of time rather than all at once. Examples are the presidentialprimariesin theUnited 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 inLebanonandIndia.The voting procedure in theLegislative Assemblies of the Roman Republicare 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.

Undemocratic

Buenos Aires1892: "The rival voters were kept back by an armed force of police out of sight to others. Only batches of two or three were allowed to enter the polling office at a time. Armed sentries guarded the gates and the doors."Godefroy Durand,The Graphic,21 May 1892.

Main articles:Electoral fraudandUnfair election

See also:Electoral integrityandForeign electoral intervention

In many of the countries with weakrule of law,the most common reason why elections do not meet international standards of being "free and fair" is interference from the incumbent government.Dictatorsmay 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 the electoral mechanisms including eligibility and district boundaries) to prevent the balance of power in the body from shifting to a rival faction due to an election.

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.

Lack of open political debate or an informed electorate

The electorate may be poorly informed about issues or candidates due to lack offreedom 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 speechmay be curtailed by the state, favouring certain viewpoints or statepropaganda.

Unfair rules

Gerrymandering,exclusion of opposition candidates from eligibility for office, needlessly high restrictions on who may be a candidate, likeballot accessrules, 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. Schedulingfrequent electionscan also lead tovoter fatigue.

Interference with campaigns

See also:Foreign electoral intervention

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 interventioncan also occur, with the United States interfering between 1946 and 2000 in 81 elections andRussia/USSRin 36. In 2018 the most intense interventions, utilizing false information, were byChinainTaiwanand byRussiainLatvia;the next highest levels were in Bahrain, Qatar and Hungary.

Tampering with mechanisms

See also:Election audit,Certification of voting machines,Secret ballot,Voter impersonation,Voter ID laws,andVoter suppression

This can include falsifying voter instructions, violation of thesecret ballot,ballot stuffing,tampering with voting machines, destruction of legitimately cast ballots, 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.

Shams

The 2023Economist Intelligence UnitDemocracy Indexmap

Asham election,orshow 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.

Sham elections are a common event indictatorial regimesthat feel the need to feign the appearance of publiclegitimacy.Published results usually show nearly 100%voter turnoutand high support (typically at least 80%, and close to 100% in many cases) for the prescribed candidate(s) or for thereferendumchoice that favours thepolitical partyin power. Dictatorial regimes can also organize sham elections with results simulating those that might be achieved in democratic countries.

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.

Ballots may contain only one "yes" option, or in the case of a simple "yes or no" question, security forces oftenpersecutepeople 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 asenemies of the people.

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 the1990 Myanmar general election,in which the government-sponsoredNational Unity Partysuffered a landslide defeat by the oppositionNational League for Democracyand consequently, the results were annulled.

A ballot from the1936 elections in Nazi Germany

A ballot from the1938 elections in Nazi Germanyasking voters to approve the newReichstagand theAnschluss.The "no" box was made significantly smaller than the "yes" box.

Examples of sham elections include: the presidential and parliamentaryelections of the Islamic Republic of Iran,the1929and1934electionsinFascist Italy,the1942 general electioninImperial Japan,those inNazi Germany,East Germany,the1940 elections of Stalinist "People's Parliaments"to legitimise theSoviet occupationofEstonia,LatviaandLithuania,those inEgyptunderGamal Abdel Nasser,Anwar Sadat,Hosni Mubarak,andAbdel Fattah el-Sisi,those inBangladeshunderSheikh Hasina,those inRussiaunderVladimir Putin(including the2014 Crimean status referendum,as well as the2014 Donbass status referendumsand the2022 annexation referendumin Russian-occupiedUkraine),the2018and2024 Venezuelan presidential election,the1928,1935,1942,1949,1951and1958 electionsin Portugal, those inIndonesiaduringNew Orderregime, the1991and2019 Kazakh presidential elections,those inNorth Korea,the1995and2002 presidential referendumsinSaddam Hussein's Iraq.

InMexico,all of the presidential elections from1929to1982are considered to be sham elections, as theInstitutional Revolutionary Party(PRI) and its predecessors governed the country in ade factosingle-party system without serious opposition, and they won all of the presidential elections in that period with more than 70% of the vote. The first seriously competitive presidential election in modern Mexican history was that of1988,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 in1994,though the opposition did not win until2000.

A predetermined conclusion is permanently established by the regime throughsuppressionof the opposition,coercionof 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. KingofLiberiawas reported to have won by 234,000 votes in the1927 general election,a "majority" that was over fifteen times larger than the number of eligible voters.

Aristocratic

Some scholars argue that the predominance of elections in modernliberal democraciesmasks the fact that they are actually aristocratic selection mechanismsthat deny each citizen an equal chance of holding public office. Such views were expressed as early as the time ofAncient GreecebyAristotle.According to Frenchpolitical scientistBernard 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.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.

Evidence suggests that the concept of electing representatives was originally conceived to be different fromdemocracy.Prior to the 18th century, some societies inWestern Europeusedsortitionas a means to select rulers, a method which allowed regular citizens to exercise power, in keeping with understandings of democracy at the time.The idea of what constituted a legitimate government shifted in the 18th century to includeconsent,especially with the rise of theenlightenment.From this point onward, 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.

This conceptual misunderstanding of elections as open and egalitarian when they are not innately so may thus be a root cause of theproblems in contemporary governance.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.Therefore, the representatives that modern electoral systems select for are too disconnected, unresponsive, and elite-serving.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 rulersor instead be hybridised with electoral representationremains a topic of debate.

See also

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

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 Review88.1: 185–192.
• Corrado Maria, Daclon. 2004.US Elections and War On Terrorism – Interview With Professor Massimo TeodoriAnalisi 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.ISBN978-0226797649
• Ware, Alan. 1987.Citizens, Parties and the State.Princeton:Princeton University Press.

External links

• "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
• "Psephos", archive of recent electoral data from 182 countries
• ElectionGuide.org — Worldwide Coverage of National-level Elections
• parties-and-elections.de: Database for all European elections since 1945
• Angus Reid Global Monitor: Election Tracker

Election organizations

• ACE Electoral Knowledge Network— electoral encyclopedia and related resources from a consortium of electoral agencies and organizations.
• International Foundation for Electoral Systems
• International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance
• European Conferences of Electoral Management Bodies (Council of Europe)
• OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR)
• European Election Law Association (Eurela),closed in 2008
• List of Local Elected Offices in the United StatesArchived2 April 2016 at theWayback Machine
• Caltech/ MIT Voting Technology Project