Voting

Method to make collective decisions Clockwise from top left: ballot for a referendum in Panama, ballot box for a French election, women voting in Bangladesh, an electronic voting machine in Brazil, a sign at a United States voting location, election inking on a man's finger in Afghanistan Voting is the process of making collective decisions by means of submitting and then adding up individual choices. The choice voted upon is often an election of a member or members to conduct political representation, but the object of a vote can be anything, for example what kind of food to buy or whether a defendant is innocent or guilty. Voting can be formal, using ballots and specific rules, or informal using raised hands, shouts (such as when the voice vote is used), or movement to indicate preference. Recent work has clarified the definition of voting beyond the classic decision-making procedure description. Research on herd animal voting behaviours show that voting can be emergent in groups as a signalling system mechanism to pressure minorities to abandon their preference in favor of cohesion with a prevailing option. It has also been pointed out that the activity of voting closely resembl