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- Dictionaryelection/ɪˈlɛkʃn/
noun
- 1. a formal and organized choice by vote of a person for a political office or other position: "the 2008 local council elections" Similar Opposite
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What does election mean?
What is an election and how does it work?
What is a formal election?
What does it mean to elect a person?
Where are elections held?
What is election day?
An election is a process in which people vote to choose a person or group of people to hold an official position.
ELECTION definition: 1. a time when people vote in order to choose someone for a political or official job: 2. a time…. Learn more.
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 operated since the 17th century. [1]
Definition of election noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. [countable, uncountable] the process of choosing a person or a group of people for a position, especially a political position, by voting. The prime minister is about to call (= announce) an election.
- Overview
- History of elections
An election is the formal process of selecting a person for public office or of accepting or rejecting a political proposition by voting.
Should election day be made a national holiday?
Whether election day should be made a national holiday is debated. Some say a holiday would increase voter turnout by enabling more people to vote while celebrating democracy. Others say a holiday would disadvantage low-income and blue collar workers and corporations should have better policies for voting time off. For more on the debate about making election day a national holiday, visit ProCon.org.
Should the United States use the Electoral College in presidential elections?
Whether the United States should use the Electoral College in presidential elections is heavily debated. Some say the Electoral College was created to protect the voices of the minority from being overwhelmed by the will of the majority and ensures that that all parts of the country are involved in selecting the president. 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. For more on the Electoral College debate, visit ProCon.org.
election, the formal process of selecting a person for public office or of accepting or rejecting a political proposition by voting. It is important to distinguish between the form and the substance of elections. In some cases, electoral forms are present but the substance of an election is missing, as when voters do not have a free and genuine choice between at least two alternatives. Most countries hold elections in at least the formal sense, but in many of them the elections are not competitive (e.g., all but one party may be forbidden to contest) or the electoral situation is in other respects highly compromised.
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. At that time, the holistic notion of representation characteristic of the Middle Ages was transformed into a more individualistic conception, one that made the individual the critical unit to be counted. For example, the British Parliament was no longer seen as representing estates, corporations, and vested interests but was rather perceived as standing for actual human beings. The movement abolishing the so-called “rotten boroughs”—electoral districts of small population controlled by a single person or family—that 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. Once governments were believed to derive their powers from the consent of the governed and expected to seek that consent regularly, it remained to decide precisely who was to be included among the governed whose consent was necessary. Advocates of full democracy favoured the establishment of universal adult suffrage. Across western Europe and North America, adult male suffrage was ensured almost everywhere by 1920, though woman suffrage was not established until somewhat later (e.g., 1928 in Britain, 1944 in France, 1949 in Belgium, and 1971 in Switzerland).
Although it is common to equate representative government and elections with democracy, and although competitive elections under universal suffrage are one of democracy’s defining characteristics, universal suffrage is not a necessary condition of competitive electoral politics. An electorate may be limited by formal legal requirements—as was the case before universal adult suffrage—or it may be limited by the failure of citizens to exercise their right to vote. In many countries with free elections, large numbers of citizens do not cast ballots. For example, in Switzerland and the United States, fewer than half the electorate vote in most elections. 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.
During the 18th century, access to the political arena depended largely on membership in an aristocracy, and participation in elections was regulated mainly by local customs and arrangements. Although both the American and French revolutions declared every citizen formally equal to every other, the vote remained an instrument of political power possessed by very few.
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Even with the implementation of universal suffrage, the ideal of “one person, one vote” was not achieved in all countries. Systems of plural voting were maintained in some countries, giving certain social groups an electoral advantage. 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. Before World War I, both Austria and Prussia had three classes of weighted votes that effectively kept electoral power in the hands of the upper social strata. Until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 in the United States, legal barriers and intimidation effectively barred most African Americans—especially those in the South—from being able to cast ballots in elections.
ELECTION meaning: 1. a time when people vote in order to choose someone for a political or official job: 2. a time…. Learn more.
The meaning of ELECTION is an act or process of electing. How to use election in a sentence. Synonym Discussion of Election.
