Voting: Wikis




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Voting is an important part of the democratic process.



Process of voting

Representative democracies discern the will of the people by a common voting procedure:

  • Individual voter registration and qualification,
  • Opening the election for a set time period,
  • Registration of voters at established voting places,
  • Selection of preferred choices (often in secret, called a secret ballot),
  • Secure collection of ballots for unbiased counting, and
  • Proclamation of the will of the voters as the will of the people for their government.

Reasons for voting

In a representative democracy, voting commonly implies election: a way for an electorate to select among candidates for office. In politics voting is the method by which the electorate of a democracy appoints representatives in its government.

A vote is an individual's act of voting, by which he or she expresses support or preference for a certain motion (for example, a proposed resolution), a certain candidate, a selection of candidates, or a political party. With a secret ballot to protect voters' political privacy, voting generally takes place at a polling station. The act of voting is voluntary in some countries; whereas some countries, such as Argentina, Australia, Belgium and Brazil, have compulsory voting systems.

Types of votes

Different voting systems use different types of vote. Suppose that the options in some election are Alice, Bob, Charlie, Daniel, and Emily and they are all vying for the same position:

In a voting system that uses a single vote, the voter selects his or her most preferred candidate. "Plurality voting systems" use single votes.

A development on the single vote system is to have two-round elections, or repeat first-past-the-post. However, the winner must win by 50% plus one, called a simple majority. If subsequent votes must be used, often a candidate, the one with the fewest votes or anyone who wants to move their support to another candidate, is removed from the ballot.

An alternative to the Two-round voting system is the single round Preferential voting system (Also referred to as Alternative vote or Instant run-off) as used in Australia, Ireland and some states in the USA. Voters rank each candidate in order of preference (1,2,3 etc). Votes are distributed to each candidate according to the preferences allocated. If no single candidate has 50% or more votes then the candidate with the least votes is excluded and their votes redistributed according to the voters nominated order of preference. The process repeating itself until a candidate has 50% or more votes. The system is designed to produce the same result as an exhaustive ballot but using only a single round of voting.


In a voting system that uses a ranked vote, the voter has to rank the alternatives in order of preference. For example, they might vote for Bob in first place, then Emily, then Alice, then Daniel, and finally Charlie. Preferential voting systems, such as those famously used in Australia, use a ranked vote.



Fair voting



In South Africa, there is a strong presence of anti-voting campaigns by poor citizens. They make the structural argument that no political party truly represents them. For instance, this resulted in the "No Land! No House! No Vote!" Campaign which becomes very prominent each time the country holds elections.[1][2] The campaign is prominent among three of South Africa's largest social movements: the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, Abahlali baseMjondolo, and the Landless Peoples Movement. Other social movements in other parts of the world also have similar campaigns or non-voting preferences. These include the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and various Anarchist oriented movements.

Voting and information


Religious view

Jehovah's Witnesses, Old Order Amish, Christadelphians, Rastafarians and other religious groups share a religious tradition of not participating in politics through voting.[4]

See also


External links

Simple English

Voting is when people make a decision by saying what they want. It can be for getting a leader, passing a law, and other things. When people are done voting, the votes are counted (often by machines) and the side that gets the most votes wins.

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