The legal design, reform, and implementation of an electoral system, whether it is supranational or regional (European Union or Central American Parliament), national (of each country), state, autonomous, departmental, municipal, cantonal, or of a county, cannot disregard the cultural, economic, legal, social, and political reality or context in which the electoral processes and institutions are inserted, not even popular idiosyncrasy. In other words, the application and interpretation of constitutional, legal, and regulatory dispositions, must agree the context. The context of an electoral system is composed not by isolated referents for the configuration, the functioning, and the effects of the system itself, but by a whole of interdependent variables.

There is not a unique or perfect electoral model, but different electoral systems used to accomplish the objectives established by the citizenship and political forces at a determined place and time. A system will be adequate when it is fit for the degree of democratic development of the community in which it is applied, or when it is capable of facilitating the community’s transition to democracy or democratic consolidation itself.

Even though the design can provoke certain results, such as an easier construction of majorities or can serve to reflect in a more reliable or proportional way the existence of different political groups, the truth is that other factors which are not necessarily derived from technical electoral elements are the ones that can propitiate the existence of the “artificial” or circumstantial majorities. Such elements can be the legislative body size, the correlation of forces among the diverse political parties and its consequent construction of coalitions or alliances, the geographical distribution of the electorate, the electoral pacts or agreements, etcetera.

An inclusive and representative democratic project, which is politically viable and with high standards of legitimacy, must consider, and even meet, the different expectations and political ideologies of each and everyone of the political actors (citizens, political parties, citizens organizations, pressure groups, etcetera), regardless of the coincidence, convergence, proximity, or even diametrical divergence of such positions in certain topics of the political agenda. The electoral systems are a product of political agreements. They are the way in which the aggregation of political groups’ interests is shown. Those interests shall not be ignored by juridical operators, except for when they are opposite to the existence of free and fair electoral processes, as it will be explained further.

The choice of a concrete electoral model (direct or indirect elections), its development (majority system, proportional representation, or either mixed or segmented) and its characteristics or combination of elements (simple, absolute or qualified majority; pure or impure proportional representation, or with a governability clause), must be a decision based on consent or majority. However, not even the majority’s agreement nor the wide consent shall exclude the minorities’ possibility of representation or voice in the government’s collegiate organs, as it happens in parliaments, congresses or legislative chambers, as well as in plural executive or administrative organs (town or city councils).

In order to prevent the electoral systems becoming theoretical, inefficient or inoperative formulas, the political agreement, the social context, and the circumstantial aspects are important. However, those aspects cannot annihilate or proscribe the principles which inform the free and fair electoral processes: The human right of passive and active vote; the celebration of periodical and authentic elections; universal, secret, and equal suffrage; the respect for human rights; the neutrality of the electoral administration regarding other State organs and political actors, and the jurisdictional control of the electoral acts’ regularity.