Precinct

	Precinct A precinct is a space enclosed by the walls or other boundaries of a particular place or building, or by an arbitrary and imaginary line drawn around it. The term is often used to refer to a division of a police department in a large city (either to the neighborhood patrolled or to the police station itself) [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
picture info	Electoral Fraud Electoral fraud, election manipulation, or vote rigging is illegal interference with the process of an election, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates, or both. What constitutes electoral fraud varies from country to country. Many kinds of election fraud are outlawed in electoral legislation, but others are in violation of general laws, such as those banning assault, harassment or libel [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
picture info	Voting System An electoral system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Political electoral systems are organized by governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, non-profit organisations and informal organisations. Electoral systems consist of sets of rules that govern all aspects of the voting process: when elections occur, who is allowed to vote, who can stand as a candidate, how ballots are marked and cast, how the ballots are counted (electoral method), limits on campaign spending, and other factors that can affect the outcome [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
picture info	Open List Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a party's candidates are elected. This as opposed to closed list, which allows only active members, party officials, or consultants to determine the order of its candidates and gives the general voter no influence at all on the position of the candidates placed on the party list. Additionally, an open list system allows voters to select individuals rather than parties. Different systems give voter different amounts of influence [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
picture info	Voter Suppression Voter suppression is a strategy to influence the outcome of an election by discouraging or preventing people from voting. It is distinguished from political campaigning in that campaigning attempts to change likely voting behavior by changing the opinions of potential voters through persuasion and organization. Voter suppression, instead, attempts to reduce the number of voters who might vote against a candidate or proposition. The tactics of voter suppression range from minor changes to make voting less convenient, to physically intimidating prospective voters, which is illegal. Voter suppression can be effective if a significant number of voters are intimidated or disenfranchised. In 2013, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Shelby v [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
picture info	Voter Registration Voter registration (or enrollment) is the requirement that a person otherwise eligible to vote register (or enroll) on an electoral roll before they will be entitled or permitted to vote. Such enrollment may be automatic or may require application being made by the eligible voter. The rules governing registration vary between jurisdictions. Some jurisdictions have "election day registration" and others do not require registration, or may require production of evidence of entitlement to vote at time of voting. In some jurisdictions registration by those of voting age is compulsory, while in most it is optional. In jurisdictions where registration is voluntary, an effort may be made to encourage persons otherwise eligible to vote to register, in what is called as a voter registration drive. Registered persons may need to re-register or update their registration if they change residence or other relevant information [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
	Likely Voter Voter segments in political polling in the United States consist of all adults, registered voters, and likely voters. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
picture info	Secret Ballot The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voter's choices in an election or a referendum is anonymous, forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vote buying. The system is one means of achieving the goal of political privacy. Secret ballots are used in conjunction with various voting systems. The most basic form of secret ballot utilizes blank pieces of paper, upon which each voter writes his or her choice. Without revealing the votes to anyone, the voter would fold the ballot paper and place it in a sealed box, which is emptied later for counting. An aspect of secret voting is the provision of a voting booth to enable the voter to write on the ballot paper without others being able to see what is being written. Today, printed ballot papers are usually provided, with the names of the candidates or questions and respective check boxes [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
picture info	Instant-runoff Voting Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a voting method used in single-seat elections with more than two candidates. Instead of voting only for a single candidate, voters in IRV elections can rank the candidates in order of preference. Ballots are initially counted for each elector's top choice, losing candidates are eliminated, and ballots for losing candidates are redistributed until one candidate is the top remaining choice of a majority of the voters. When the field is reduced to two, it has become an "instant runoff" that allows a comparison of the top two candidates head-to-head. IRV has the effect of avoiding split votes when multiple candidates earn support from like-minded voters. As a simple example, suppose there are two candidates with similar views, A and B, and a third with different views, C; with first-preference totals of 35% for candidate A, 25% for B and 40% for C [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
	Split-ticket Voting Split-ticket voting refers to when a voter in an election votes for candidates from different political parties when multiple offices are being decided by a single election, as opposed to straight-ticket voting, where a voter chooses candidates from the same political party for every office up for election. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
	Provisional Ballot A provisional ballot is used to record a vote when there are questions about a given voter's eligibility [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
	Refused Ballot A refused ballot, or similar alternative, is a choice available to voters in many elections [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
picture info	Spoilt Vote In voting, a ballot is considered spoilt, spoiled, void, null, informal, invalid, or stray if a law declares or an election authority determines that it is invalid and thus not included in the vote count. This may occur accidentally or deliberately [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
picture info	Tactical Voting In voting methods, tactical voting (or strategic voting or sophisticated voting or insincere voting) occurs, in elections with more than two candidates, when a voter supports another candidate more strongly than their sincere preference in order to prevent an undesirable outcome. For example, in a simple plurality election, a voter might sometimes gain a "better" outcome by voting for a less preferred but more generally popular candidate. It has been shown by the Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem that any single-winner ranked voting method which is not dictatorial must be susceptible to tactical voting [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]