Election science is a field that deals with the conduct and administration of

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby 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 ...

. It is distinct from the study of

public opinion Public opinion, or popular opinion, is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them. In the 21st century, public opinion is widely thought to be heavily ...

and election forecasting (which fall under

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

and

psephology Psephology (; from Greek ) is the study of elections and voting. Psephology attempts to both forecast and explain election results. The term is more common in Britain and in those English-speaking communities that rely heavily on the British st ...

). Election science combines the theoretical study of

social choice theory Social choice theory is a branch of welfare economics that extends the Decision theory, theory of rational choice to collective decision-making. Social choice studies the behavior of different mathematical procedures (social welfare function, soc ...

(a branch of

math Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

and

welfare economics Welfare economics is a field of economics that applies microeconomic techniques to evaluate the overall well-being (welfare) of a society. The principles of welfare economics are often used to inform public economics, which focuses on the ...

) with empirical research dealing with the administration of elections (a branch of

). The study of election science can be traced back to early scientific studies of electoral systems and particularly the development of the field of

, including the

Marquis de Condorcet Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis of Condorcet (; ; 17 September 1743 – 29 March 1794), known as Nicolas de Condorcet, was a French Philosophy, philosopher, Political economy, political economist, Politics, politician, and m ...

's analysis of

electoral systems An electoral or voting system is a set of rules used to determine the results of an election. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, nonprofit organizations and inf ...

in the 18th century. The field came into being following the

2000 United States presidential election United States presidential election, Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 7, 2000. Republican Party (United States), Republican Governor George W. Bush of Texas, the eldest son of 41st President George H. W. Bush, ...

, where several administrative and technical failures may have affected the outcome of the election. Examples of subjects where election science methods are applied include

gerrymandering Gerrymandering, ( , originally ) defined in the contexts of Representative democracy, representative electoral systems, is the political manipulation of Boundary delimitation, electoral district boundaries to advantage a Political party, pa ...

electoral fraud 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 o ...

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 ...

, and

voter registration In electoral systems, voter registration (or enrollment) is the requirement that a person otherwise Suffrage, eligible to Voting, vote must register (or enroll) on an electoral roll, which is usually a prerequisite for being entitled or permitted ...

. There is an

academic conference An academic conference or scientific conference (also congress, symposium, workshop, or meeting) is an Convention (meeting), event for researchers (not necessarily academics) to present and discuss their scholarly work. Together with academic jou ...

dedicated to the study of election science and the

Southern Political Science Association The Southern Political Science Association (SPSA) is an American learned society and national political science association. It promotes political science in the United States and internationally. Its primary purposes are to publish a professional ...

has a sub-conference for the study of election science. In addition, multiple universities now offer a

bachelor of science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

in political science for a

data science Data science is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses statistics, scientific computing, scientific methods, processing, scientific visualization, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge from potentially noisy, stru ...

track. The

Center for Election Science The Center for Election Science is an American 501(c)(3) organization that focuses on voter education and promoting election science. The organization promotes cardinal voting methods such as approval and score voting. They have their early ro ...

supports academic research in the fields of election science and

, as well as making outreach and education efforts towards the broader public.

References

External links

* Political science Subfields of political science Politics Elections {{Election-stub

See also

References

External links