what is election definition

A free election is one in which all citizens are able to vote for the candidate of their choice, and a fair election is one in which all votes have equal power and are counted accurately. For that reason, most democratic constitutions provide that elections are held at fixed regular intervals. Plebiscites of this nature are thought to establish a direct link between the rulers and the ruled; intermediaries such as political parties are bypassed, and for this reason plebiscites are sometimes considered antithetical to pluralism and competitive politics. Emeritus Professor of Political Science, Stanford University, California. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced searchad free! Elections which are fixed are sometimes called sham elections or show elections.[3][4][5][6][7][8]. 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. Learn more. choice suggests the opportunity or privilege of choosing freely. Some will be the local candidates for national political parties. See full entry for 'election' Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's Dictionary. What's 'Bidenomics'? The president hopes a dubious nation embraces his Obviously, by competing in parliamentary elections, parties compete for office, but this does not mean that their goal is actually to attain office. Watch Newsround - signed and subtitled. Opposition candidates are permitted in former USSR countries, but they are usually prevented from using broadcasting or the newspapers. the status of being or having been elected: his fading chances for election; the international coverage of her election. Each person has one vote. You can change your cookie settings at any time. Election - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [24] GOP presidential candidate Francis Suarez: 'What's a Uyghur?' - NBC News Uyghurs are a predominantly Muslim minority in China's western region who have faced widespread persecution by the Chinese government in what the U.S. government has designated a genocide. The average (199,685) is derived from total numbers of votes cast in the 1996. Historically the size of eligible voters, the electorate, was small having the size of groups or communities of privileged men like aristocrats and men of a city (citizens). President Joe Biden has long struggled to neatly summarize his sprawling economic vision. When there is no clear winner - in other words, no political party wins more seats that all the other parties put together - this is what is called a hung parliament. To win, a political party needs to reach the magic number of 326 MPs, which is half of all of them plus one. election, the formal process of selecting a person for public office or of accepting or rejecting a political proposition by voting. To vote in a general election you must: be registered to vote; be 18 or over on the day of the election . A runoff election is a second election. 2023 BBC. [42] 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). By-election definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary Updates? ADJECTIVES/NOUN + election fair (= with no unfair advantage to one person or group) The ruling party has promised that the elections will be fair. Sometimes schools are used as polling stations, Theresa May was the leader of the Consevative Party at the 2017 General Election, In 2010, David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party, formed a coalition government with Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, After the 2017 General Election, Theresa May's Conservative Party made a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party so they'd have enough support in Parliament, The UK government is based here, in the Houses of Parliament in London. Newsround's here to explain General Election: What do all the words mean? While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Structure. What is a general election? - BBC Newsround Although legal or self-imposed exclusion can dramatically affect public policy and even undermine the legitimacy of a government, it does not preclude decision making by election, provided that voters are given genuine alternatives among which to choose. ELECTION. But how does it all work? But if the government wants to trigger an election earlier than that, the simplest way to do it is to call for one under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. election, the formal process of selecting a person for public office or of accepting or rejecting a political proposition by voting. preference suggests a choice guided by one's judgment or predilections. Whether the United States should use the Electoral College in presidential elections is heavily debated. ELECTION | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary In a democracy people use voting to choose government leaders. Learn more. This conceptual misunderstanding of elections as open and egalitarian when they are not innately so may thus be a root cause of the problems in contemporary governance. Germany's far-Right party won a local election for the first time in their ten-year history, marking a "black day" for the country's democracy, opponents said. Watch Newsround - signed and subtitled. 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. In other cases, a regime may postpone an election if there is a significant chance that it will lose. These are called MPs (Members of Parliament) in the British parliamentary system. Election definition in American English | Collins English Dictionary 4. Whatever the peculiar national, regional, or local variations, elections are events that, by arousing emotions and channeling them toward collective symbols, break the monotony of daily life and focus attention on the common fate. [36], Examples of sham elections include: the presidential and parliamentary elections of the Islamic Republic of Iran,[37] the 1929 and 1934 elections in Fascist Italy, the 1942 general election in Imperial Japan, those in Nazi Germany, East Germany, the 1940 elections of Stalinist "People's Parliaments" to legitimise the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the 1928, 1935, 1942, 1949, 1951 and 1958 elections in Portugal, the 1991 and 2019 Kazakh presidential elections, those in North Korea,[38] the 1995 and 2002 presidential referendums in Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the 2021 Hong Kong legislative election.[39]. Most democratic countries hold new elections for their national legislature every few years. to remain in power despite popular opinion in favour of removal. and the voting system then determines the result on the basis of the tally. Copyright HarperCollins Publishers Examples of 'parliamentary election' in a sentence parliamentary election "Le systme lectoral et son effet sur la reprsentation parlementaire des partis: le cas europen", LGDJ; This page was last edited on 11 June 2023, at 21:46. The movement abolishing the so-called rotten boroughselectoral districts of small population controlled by a single person or familythat culminated in the Reform Act of 1832 (one of three major Reform Bills in the 19th century in Britain that expanded the size of the electorate) was a direct consequence of this individualistic conception of representation. Primary election - Wikipedia They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. By-election Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com Election is the fact of electing, or being elected. plebiscite: [noun] a vote by which the people of an entire country or district express an opinion for or against a proposal especially on a choice of government or ruler. Harper: what the SCOTUS decision means for free and fair elections. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. For example, in the United Kingdom, university graduates and owners of businesses in constituencies other than those in which they lived could cast more than one ballot until 1948. Because direct democracya form of government in which political decisions are made directly by the entire body of qualified citizensis impractical in most modern societies, democratic government must be conducted through representatives. It is across a series of elections and governments that the force of the median mandate thesis comes through clearly. Presidential and semipresidential systems, Constituencies: districting and apportionment. 3. the act or an instance of choosing. For precisely these reasons, the long battle for the right to vote and the demand for equality in electoral participation can be viewed as the manifestation of a profound human craving for personal fulfillment. an election in which citizens vote for themselves instead of representatives voting for them (Definition of direct election from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary Cambridge University Press) voting - Kids | Britannica Kids | Homework Help Wed like to set additional cookies to understand how you use GOV.UK, remember your settings and improve government services. [4][bettersourceneeded] The Pala King Gopala (ruled c.750s 770s CE) in early medieval Bengal was elected by a group of feudal chieftains. For example, many corporations hold elections among shareholders to select a board of directors, and these elections may be mandated by corporate law. On election day, people go to polling stations to vote. 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. Such views were expressed as early as the time of Ancient Greece by Aristotle. However, the gaa members had the final say in his elections. Published results usually show nearly 100% voter turnout and high support (typically at least 80%, and close to 100% in many cases) for the prescribed candidate(s) or for the referendum choice that favours the political party in power. From one day to the next (Phrases with day, Part 1), Cambridge University Press & Assessment 2023. Most systems can be categorized as either proportional, majoritarian or mixed. An electorate may be limited by formal legal requirementsas was the case before universal adult suffrageor it may be limited by the failure of citizens to exercise their right to vote. Learn more. More . Also many countries call themselves democracies, but behind the scenes have a more autocratic form of government. They also may vote for or against certain laws or projects in their community. Dictatorial regimes can also organize sham elections with results simulating those that might be achieved in democratic countries. Twentythree second elections resulted in a lower effective number of parties, while only seven second elections resulted in a higher effective number of parties. Election definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary In a direct democracy, one type of non-partisan democracy, any eligible person can be nominated. Eligible voters may be subject to punitive measures such as a fine for not casting a vote. Political parties provide the pool of talent from which candidates are drawn, and they simplify and direct the electoral choice and mobilize the electorate at the registration and election stage. Foreign electoral intervention can also occur, with the United States interfering between 1946 and 2000 in 81 elections and Russia/USSR in 36. 13th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a, The Electoral College vs The College of Registered Voters. You have accepted additional cookies. Primaries may be closed (partisan), allowing only declared party members to vote, or open (nonpartisan), enabling all voters to choose which party's primary they wish to vote in without declaring any party affiliation. Local government structure and elections - GOV.UK Mixed systems combine elements of both proportional and majoritarian methods, with some typically producing results closer to the former (mixed-member proportional) or the other (e.g. [46] 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. President Salva Kiir of South Sudan says his countrys long-delayed elections will take place in 2024 and that he will be on the ballot, New York City elections officials will begin releasing preliminary results from ranked choice voting in last weeks City Council primaries, A week after Guatemalas June 25 elections boosted a relative long-shot candidate into the final second round of voting, the countrys top court has frozen certification of the election results, Campaigning for Cambodias general election has officially begun, An Army combat veteran with extensive cybersecurity and counterterrorism experience is taking over as one of the nations top election security officials. For example, in Poland more names appeared on the ballot than there were offices to fill, and some degree of electoral choice was thus provided. When they are done, they will announce the result in a speech, called Habemus Papam (Latin: We have a pope), Elections keep a democratic country functioning, as they give people the right to select their own government. Systems of plural voting were maintained in some countries, giving certain social groups an electoral advantage. Beginning in the mid 1970s, competitive elections were introduced gradually throughout most of Latin America. Usage explanations of natural written and spoken English, British and American pronunciations with audio. [2] Early elections in countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States were dominated by landed or ruling class males. Each area has a person called a Member of Parliament (or MP), who represents it in the House of Commons in London. free (= with everyone allowed to vote for who they want) These will be the country's first free multi-party elections. In Mexico, all of the presidential elections from 1929 to 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. This term, in its most usual acceptation, signifies the choice which several persons collectively make of a person to fill an office or place. Others say the Electoral College is rooted in slavery and racism and gives too much power to swing states and allows the presidential election to be decided by a handful of states. What Is a Runoff Election? - FindLaw 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. Nglish: Translation of election for Spanish Speakers, Britannica English: Translation of election for Arabic Speakers, Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about election. ELECTION CAMPAIGN | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary For more on the Electoral College debate, visit ProCon.org. Freedom of speech may be curtailed by the state, favouring certain viewpoints or state propaganda. [5][6] In the Chola Empire, around 920 CE, in Uthiramerur (in present-day Tamil Nadu), palm leaves were used for selecting the village committee members. Higher household incomes, inflation and population growth are all factors that have contributed to this trend of higher election spend.[2]. Election campaign definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary Elections, then, are of men or things. (Definition of election from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary Cambridge University Press) [40], Scholars argue that the predominance of elections in modern liberal democracies masks the fact that they are actually aristocratic selection mechanisms[41] that deny each citizen an equal chance of holding public office.
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