![Election MG 3455](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Election_MG_3455.JPG)
An election is a formal
group decision-making Group decision-making (also known as collaborative decision-making or collective decision-making) is a situation faced when individuals collectively make a choice from the alternatives before them. The decision is then no longer attributable to any ...
process by which a
population
Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction usi ...
chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold
public office
Public Administration (a form of governance) or Public Policy and Administration (an academic discipline) is the implementation of public policy, administration of government establishment ( public governance), management of non-profit estab ...
.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern
representative democracy
Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of represe ...
has operated since the 17th century.
Elections may fill offices in the
legislature
A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government.
Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known ...
, sometimes in the
executive
Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to:
Role or title
* Executive, a senior management role in an organization
** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators
** Executive di ...
and
judiciary
The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law ...
, and for
regional and local government. This process is also used in many other private and
business
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit."
Having a business name does not separ ...
organisations, from clubs to
voluntary association
A voluntary group or union (also sometimes called a voluntary organization, common-interest association, association, or society) is a group of individuals who enter into an agreement, usually as volunteers, to form a body (or organization) to ac ...
s and
corporation
A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and ...
s.
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
The concept of an archetype (; ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis.
An archetype can be any of the following:
# a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that ...
, ancient
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...
, where the elections were considered an
oligarchic
Oligarchy (; ) is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, r ...
institution and most political offices were filled using
sortition
In governance, sortition (also known as selection by lottery, selection by lot, allotment, demarchy, stochocracy, aleatoric democracy, democratic lottery, and lottocracy) is the selection of political officials as a random sample from a large ...
, also known as allotment, by which officeholders were chosen by lot.
Electoral reform
Electoral reform is a change in electoral systems which alters how public desires are expressed in election results. That can include reforms of:
* Voting systems, such as proportional representation, a two-round system (runoff voting), instant ...
describes the process of introducing fair
electoral system
An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections m ...
s where they are not in place, or improving the fairness or effectiveness of existing systems.
Psephology
Psephology (; from Greek el, ψῆφος, psephos, pebble, label=none) or political analysis is a branch of political science, the "quantitative analysis of elections and balloting". As such, psephology attempts to explain elections using the ...
is the study of results and other
statistics
Statistics (from German: '' Statistik'', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, indust ...
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
referendum
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a Representative democr ...
s are referred to as elections, especially in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
.
History
![Cardiganshire Election ballot paper 1880](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Cardiganshire_Election_ballot_paper_1880.jpg)
Elections were used as early in history as
ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cu ...
and
ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom ...
, and throughout the Medieval period to select rulers such as the
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans ( la, Imperator Romanorum, german: Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period ( la, Imperat ...
(see
imperial election
The election of a Holy Roman Emperor was generally a two-stage process whereby, from at least the 13th century, the King of the Romans was elected by a small body of the greatest princes of the Empire, the prince-electors. This was then follow ...
) and the
pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
(see
papal election
A papal conclave is a gathering of the College of Cardinals convened to elect a bishop of Rome, also known as the pope. Catholics consider the pope to be the apostolic successor of Saint Peter and the earthly head of the Catholic Church. ...
).
["Election (political science)"](_blank)
''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 August 2009
In the
Vedic period
The Vedic period, or the Vedic age (), is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas (ca. 1300–900 BCE), was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, betwe ...
of India, the ''
raja
''Raja'' (; from , IAST ') is a royal title used for South Asian monarchs. The title is equivalent to king or princely ruler in South Asia and Southeast Asia.
The title has a long history in South Asia and Southeast Asia, being attested ...
'' (kings) of a ''
gaṇa'' (a tribal organization) was elected by the ''gana''. The ''raja'' always belonged to the
Kshatriya
Kshatriya ( hi, क्षत्रिय) (from Sanskrit ''kṣatra'', "rule, authority") is one of the four varna (social orders) of Hindu society, associated with warrior aristocracy. The Sanskrit term ''kṣatriyaḥ'' is used in the co ...
varna (warrior class), and was typically a son of the previous ''raja''. However, the ''gana'' members had the final say in his elections.
Even during the Sangam Period people elected their representatives by casting their votes and the ballot boxes (usually a pot) were tied by rope and sealed. After the election the votes were taken out and counted. The
Pala Pala may refer to:
Places
Chad
*Pala, Chad, the capital of the region of Mayo-Kebbi Ouest
Estonia
*Pala, Kose Parish, village in Kose Parish, Harju County
*Pala, Kuusalu Parish, village in Kuusalu Parish, Harju County
* Pala, Järva County, vil ...
King
Gopala
Gopala (Bangla: গোপাল) (ruled c. 750s–770s CE) was the founder of the Pala dynasty of Bihar and Bengal regions of the Indian Subcontinent. The last morpheme of his name ''Pala'' means "protector" and was used as an ending for the nam ...
(ruled c. 750s – 770s CE) in early medieval
Bengal
Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
was elected by a group of feudal chieftains. Such elections were quite common in contemporary societies of the region.
In the
Chola Empire
The Chola dynasty was a Tamil thalassocratic empire of southern India and one of the longest-ruling dynasties in the history of the world. The earliest datable references to the Chola are from inscriptions dated to the 3rd century BCE d ...
, around 920 CE, in
Uthiramerur (in present-day
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...
), 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.
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
The ephors were a board of five magistrates in ancient Sparta. They had an extensive range of judicial, religious, legislative, and military powers, and could shape Sparta's home and foreign affairs.
The word "''ephors''" (Ancient Greek ''ép ...
of
Sparta
Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referr ...
in 754 BC, under the
mixed government
Mixed government (or a mixed constitution) is a form of government that combines elements of democracy, aristocracy and monarchy, ostensibly making impossible their respective degenerations which are conceived as anarchy, oligarchy and tyranny. T ...
of the
Spartan Constitution
The Spartan Constitution (or Spartan politeia) are the government and laws of the classical Greek city-state of Sparta. All classical Greek city-states had a politeia; the politeia of Sparta however, was noted by many classical authors for its ...
.
Athenian
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...
democratic elections, where all citizens could hold public office, were not introduced for another 247 years, until the reforms of
Cleisthenes
Cleisthenes ( ; grc-gre, Κλεισθένης), or Clisthenes (c. 570c. 508 BC), was an ancient Athenian lawgiver credited with reforming the constitution of ancient Athens and setting it on a democratic footing in 508 BC. For these accomplishm ...
. Under the earlier
Solonian Constitution
The Solonian constitution was created by Solon in the early 6th century BC. At the time of Solon the Athenian State was almost falling to pieces in consequence of dissensions between the parties into which the population was divided. Solon wanted ...
(circa 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
Solon ( grc-gre, Σόλων; BC) was an Athenian statesman, constitutional lawmaker and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in Archaic Athens.Aristotle ''Politic ...
. The Spartan election of the Ephors, therefore, also predates the reforms of Solon in Athens by approximately 180 years.
![Election of Paasikivi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Election_of_Paasikivi.jpg)
Questions of
suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...
, 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
Electorate may refer to:
* The people who are eligible to vote in an election, especially their number e.g. the term ''size of (the) electorate''
* The dominion of a Prince-elector in the Holy Roman Empire until 1806
* An electoral district or c ...
and continue to do so in many countries.
[ Early elections in countries such as the ]United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
and the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
were dominated by landed or ruling class
In sociology, the ruling class of a society is the social class who set and decide the political and economic agenda of society. In Marxist philosophy, the ruling class are the capitalist social class who own the means of production and by ex ...
males.[ However, by 1920 all Western European and North American democracies had universal adult male suffrage (except Switzerland) and many countries began to consider ]women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
.[ Despite legally mandated universal suffrage for adult males, political barriers were sometimes erected to prevent fair access to elections (see ]civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
).[
]
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
A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal ...
to select a board of directors
A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit orga ...
, and these elections may be mandated by corporate law. In many places, an election to the government is usually a competition among people who have already won a primary election
Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the ...
within a political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
. 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 (see 1967 referendum entry) and in 2010 the federal government removed the rights of prisoners serving for 3 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.
Voting population
Historically the size of eligible voters, the electorate, was small having the size of groups or communities of privileged men like aristocrats
Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'.
At the time of the word' ...
and men of a city (citizens
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
).
With the growth of the number of people with bourgeois
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. ...
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
The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Ki ...
, 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
In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This can be the percentage of registered voters, eligible voters, or all voting-age people. According to Stanford Univ ...
of maximum 10% in 70 BC,[Vishnia 2012, p. 125] only again comparable in size to the first elections of the United States. At the same time the Kingdom of Great Britain
The Kingdom of Great Britain (officially Great Britain) was a sovereign country in Western Europe from 1 May 1707 to the end of 31 December 1800. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of Union 1707, wh ...
had in 1780 about 214,000 eligible voters, 3% of the whole population.
Candidates
A representative democracy
Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of represe ...
requires a procedure to govern nomination for political office. In many cases, nomination for office is mediated through preselection
Preselection is the process by which a candidate is selected, usually by a political party, to contest an election for political office. It is also referred to as candidate selection. It is a fundamental function of political parties. The presele ...
processes in organized political parties.
Non-partisan systems tend to be different from partisan systems as concerns nominations. In a direct democracy
Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the electorate decides on policy initiatives without elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently established democracies, which are repres ...
, one type of non-partisan democracy
Nonpartisan democracy (also no-party democracy) is a system of representative government or organization such that universal and periodic elections take place without reference to political parties. Sometimes electioneering and even speaking a ...
, 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).
As far as partisan systems, in some countries, only members of a particular party can be nominated (see one-party state
A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other partie ...
). Or, any eligible person can be nominated through a process; thus allowing him or her to be listed.
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 counting systems
Vote counting is the process of counting votes in an election. It can be done manually or by machines. In the United States, the compilation of election returns and validation of the outcome that forms the basis of the official results is call ...
may be used. and the voting system then determines the result on the basis of the tally. Most systems can be categorized as either proportional, majoritarian
Majoritarianism is a traditional political philosophy or agenda that asserts that a majority (sometimes categorized by religion, language, social class, or some other identifying factor) of the population is entitled to a certain degree of p ...
or mixed. Among the proportional systems, the most commonly used are party-list proportional representation
Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a subset of proportional representation electoral systems in which multiple candidates are elected (e.g., elections to parliament) through their position on an electoral list. They can also be u ...
(list PR) systems, among majoritarian are first-past-the-post
In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast the ...
electoral system (single winner plurality voting
Plurality voting refers to electoral systems in which a candidate, or candidates, who poll more than any other counterpart (that is, receive a plurality), are elected. In systems based on single-member districts, it elects just one member per ...
) and different methods of majority voting (such as the widely used two-round system
The two-round system (TRS), also known as runoff voting, second ballot, or ballotage, is a voting method used to elect a single candidate, where voters cast a single vote for their preferred candidate. It generally ensures a majoritarian resu ...
). Mixed systems combine elements of both proportional and majoritarian methods, with some typically producing results closer to the former (mixed-member proportional
Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a mixed electoral system in which votes cast are considered in local elections and also to determine overall party vote tallies, which are used to allocate additional members to produce ...
) or the other (e.g. parallel voting
Parallel voting is a type of mixed electoral system in which representatives are voted into a single chamber using two or more different systems, most often first-past-the-post voting (FPTP) with party-list proportional representation (PR). It i ...
).
Many countries have growing electoral reform movements, which advocate systems such as approval voting
Approval voting is an electoral system in which voters can select many candidates instead of selecting only one candidate.
Description
Approval voting ballots show a list of the options of candidates running. Approval voting lets each voter i ...
, single transferable vote
Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate p ...
, instant runoff voting
Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a type of ranked preferential voting method. It uses a majority voting rule in single-winner elections where there are more than two candidates. It is commonly referred to as ranked-choice voting (RCV) in the U ...
or a Condorcet method
A Condorcet method (; ) is an election method that elects the candidate who wins a majority of the vote in every head-to-head election against each of the other candidates, that is, a candidate preferred by more voters than any others, whenever ...
; 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
Accountability, in terms of ethics and governance, is equated with answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and the expectation of account-giving. As in an aspect of governance, it has been central to discussions related to problems in the pub ...
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
The secret ballot, also known as the Australian ballot, is a voting method in which a voter's identity in an election or a referendum is anonymous. This forestalls attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vo ...
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
In politics, campaign advertising is the use of an advertising campaign through the media to influence a political debate, and ultimately, voters. These ads are designed by political consultants and political campaign staff. Many countries re ...
. It is common for political scientists to attempt to predict elections via political forecasting
Political forecasting aims at forecasting the outcomes of political events. Political events can be a number of events such as diplomatic decisions, actions by political leaders and other areas relating to politicians and political institutions. T ...
methods.
The most expensive election campaign included US$7 billion spent on the 2012 United States presidential election
The 2012 United States presidential election was the 57th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. Incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama and his running mate, incumbent Vice President Joe Biden, were re ...
and is followed by the US$5 billion spent on the 2014 Indian general election
General elections were held in India in nine phases from 7 April to 12 May 2014 to elect the members of the 16th Lok Sabha. With 834 million registered voters, they were the largest-ever elections in the world until being surpassed by the 2019 ...
.
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
Mandate most often refers to:
* League of Nations mandates, quasi-colonial territories established under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, 28 June 1919
* Mandate (politics), the power granted by an electorate
Mandate may also r ...
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
The president of Ireland ( ga, Uachtarán na hÉireann) is the head of state of Ireland and the supreme commander of the Irish Defence Forces.
The president holds office for seven years, and can be elected for a maximum of two terms.Constitu ...
is elected every seven years, the President of Russia
The president of the Russian Federation ( rus, Президент Российской Федерации, Prezident Rossiyskoy Federatsii) is the head of state of the Russian Federation. The president leads the executive branch of the federa ...
and the President of Finland
The president of the Republic of Finland ( fi, Suomen tasavallan presidentti; sv, Republiken Finlands president) is the head of state of Finland. Under the Constitution of Finland, executive power is vested in the Finnish Government and the p ...
every six years, the President of France
The president of France, officially the president of the French Republic (french: Président de la République française), is the executive head of state of France, and the commander-in-chief of the French Armed Forces. As the presidency i ...
every five years, President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...
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
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
) 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
A motion of no confidence, also variously called a vote of no confidence, no-confidence motion, motion of confidence, or vote of confidence, is a statement or vote about whether a person in a position of responsibility like in government or mana ...
). This calculation depends on a number of variables, such as its performance in opinion polls and the size of its majority.
Non-democratic elections
In many of the countries with weak rule of law
The rule of law is the political philosophy that all citizens and institutions within a country, state, or community are accountable to the same laws, including lawmakers and leaders. The rule of law is defined in the ''Encyclopedia Britannic ...
, the most common reason why elections do not meet international standards of being "free and fair" is interference from the incumbent government. Dictator
A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a small clique. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to rule the republic in time ...
s 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 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 of freedom of the press
Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic media, especially published materials, should be considered a right to be exerc ...
, 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
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
may be curtailed by the state, favouring certain viewpoints or state propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
.
Unfair rules
Gerrymandering
In representative democracies, gerrymandering (, originally ) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The m ...
, exclusion of opposition candidates from eligibility for office, needlessly high restrictions on who may be a candidate, like ballot access
Elections in the United States refers to the rules and procedures regulating the conditions under which a candidate, political party, or ballot measure is entitled to appear on voters' ballots. As the nation's election process is decentralized b ...
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.
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
Foreign electoral interventions are attempts by governments, covertly or overtly, to influence elections in another country.
Academic studies Intervention measurements
Theoretical and empirical research on the effect of foreign electoral inte ...
can also occur, with the United States interfering between 1946 and 2000 in 81 elections and Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
/USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nati ...
in 36.
In 2018 the most intense interventions, utilizing false information, were by China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
in Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...
and by Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
in Latvia
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
; the next highest levels were in Bahrain, Qatar and Hungary.
Tampering with the election mechanism
This can include falsifying voter instructions,
violation of the secret ballot
The secret ballot, also known as the Australian ballot, is a voting method in which a voter's identity in an election or a referendum is anonymous. This forestalls attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vo ...
, ballot stuffing
Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...
, tampering with voting machines,
destruction of legitimately cast ballots,
voter suppression
Voter suppression is a strategy used to influence the outcome of an election by discouraging or preventing specific groups of people from voting. It is distinguished from political campaigning in that campaigning attempts to change likely voting ...
, 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.
Sham elections are a common event in dictatorial regimes that feel the need to feign the appearance of public legitimacy
Legitimacy, from the Latin ''legitimare'' meaning "to make lawful", may refer to:
* Legitimacy (criminal law)
* Legitimacy (family law)
* Legitimacy (political)
See also
* Bastard (law of England and Wales)
* Illegitimacy in fiction
* Legit (d ...
. Published results usually show nearly 100% voter turnout
In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This can be the percentage of registered voters, eligible voters, or all voting-age people. According to Stanford Univ ...
and high support (typically at least 80%, and close to 100% in many cases) for the prescribed or for the referendum
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a Representative democr ...
choice that favours the political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
in 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 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
The term enemy of the people or enemy of the nation, is a designation for the political or class opponents of the subgroup in power within a larger group. The term implies that by opposing the ruling subgroup, the "enemies" in question are ac ...
.
Sham elections can sometimes backfire against the party in power, especially if the regime believes they are popular enough to win without coercion or fraud. The most famous example of this was the 1990 Myanmar general election, in which the government-sponsored National Unity Party The National Unity Party, National United Party, Party of National Unity or National Unity Front may refer to:
* National United Party of Afghanistan (founded 2003)
* National Unity Party (Albania)
* National United Party (Armenia), defunct
* Nati ...
suffered a landslide defeat to the opposition National League for Democracy
The National League for Democracy ( my, အမျိုးသား ဒီမိုကရေစီ အဖွဲ့ချုပ်, ; abbr. NLD; Burmese abbr. ဒီချုပ်) is a liberal democratic political party in Myanmar (Burma). It ...
and consequently, the results were annulled.
Examples of sham elections are the 1929
This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...
and 1934
Events
January–February
* January 1 – The International Telecommunication Union, a specialist agency of the League of Nations, is established.
* January 15 – The 8.0 Nepal–Bihar earthquake strikes Nepal and Bihar with a maxi ...
elections
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 opera ...
in Fascist Italy, the 1942 general election in Imperial Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent forma ...
, those in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In t ...
, the 1940 elections of Stalinist "People's Parliaments" to legitimise the Soviet occupation
During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland (incorporated into two different ...
of Estonia, Latvia
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
and Lithuania, the 1928 Portuguese presidential election, 1928, 1935 Portuguese presidential election, 1935, 1942 Portuguese presidential election, 1942, 1949 Portuguese presidential election, 1949, 1951 Portuguese presidential election, 1951 and 1958 Portuguese presidential election, 1958 elections in Portugal, the 1991 Kazakh presidential election, those in Elections in North Korea, North Korea, the 1995 Iraqi presidential referendum, 1995 and 2002 Iraqi presidential referendum, 2002 presidential referendums in Ba'athist Iraq, Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the 2021 Hong Kong legislative election.
In Mexico, all of the presidential elections from 1929 Mexican general election, 1929 to 1982 Mexican general election, 1982 are considered to be sham elections, as the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its predecessors governed the country in a ''de facto'' single-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 of 1988 Mexican general election, 1988, in which for the first time the PRI candidate faced two strong opposition candidates, though the government still rigged the result. The first fair election was held in 1994 Mexican general election, 1994, though the opposition did not win until 2000 Mexican general election, 2000.
A predetermined conclusion is permanently established by the regime through Political repression, suppression of the opposition, coercion of voters, Electoral fraud, 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 Liberian general election, 1927 general election, a "majority" that was over fifteen times larger than the number of eligible voters.
Elections as aristocratic
Scholars argue that the predominance of elections in modern Liberal democracy, liberal democracies masks the fact that they are actually aristocratic selection mechanisms 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. According to French Political science, 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. These four factors result in the evaluation of candidates based on voters' partial standards of quality and social saliency (for example, skin color 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.
Additionally, evidence suggests that the concept of electing representatives was originally conceived to be ''different'' from democracy. Prior to the 18th century, some societies in Western Europe used sortition
In governance, sortition (also known as selection by lottery, selection by lot, allotment, demarchy, stochocracy, aleatoric democracy, democratic lottery, and lottocracy) is the selection of political officials as a random sample from a large ...
as a means to select rulers, a method which allowed regular citizens to exercise power, in keeping with understandings of democracy at the time. However, the idea of what constituted a legitimate government shifted in the 18th century to include Consent of the governed, consent, especially with the rise of the Age of Enlightenment, 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.
This conceptual misunderstanding of elections as open and egalitarian when they are not innately so may thus be a root cause of the Oligarchy, problems 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 rulers or instead be hybridised with electoral representation remains 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
*Party system
*Pluralism (political philosophy)
*Political polarization
*Political science
*Polling station
*Proportional representation
*Re-election
*Slate (elections), Slate
*Stunning elections
*Two-party system
*Voter turnout
*Voting system
References
Bibliography
* Kenneth Arrow, 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;
* William H. Riker, 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.
* Ware, Alan. 1987. ''Citizens, Parties and the State''. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
External links
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
ACE Electoral Knowledge Network
— electoral encyclopedia and related resources from a consortium of electoral agencies and organizations.
Angus Reid Global Monitor: Election Tracker
IDEA's Table of Electoral Systems Worldwide
European Election Law Association (Eurela)
List of Local Elected Offices in the United States
Caltech/ MIT Voting Technology Project
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