This glossary defines the use of words within this topic area. Some words may have specific definitions within the legislation and regulations of a particular country (note particularly in this context citizenship, immigrant, naturalization and resident).
Advance voting – The opportunity for electors to cast their vote before election day. There are a variety of ways in which this can be done, including postal voting and voting at determined polling sites.
Asylum seeker – A person whose application for asylum in or recognition as a refugee by a country of which he or she is not a citizen is pending, and who claims to fear persecution if returned home.
Attendance voting – See Personal voting.
Boundary delimitation – The process by which a country, local authority area or area of a supranational institution is divided into electoral districts.
Campaign – The political activity, including meetings, rallies, speeches, demonstrations, parades, other events, and the use of the media, intended to inform the electorate of the platform of a particular candidate or political party and to gather support.
Citizenship – The status of being a citizen of a country, which is accompanied by a range of rights and obligations often defined in the constitution or a basic or organic law. Requirements for citizenship vary, and may include being born in a country, having one parent or both parents from that country, or naturalization.
Closed list – A form of List proportional representation (PR) in which electors are restricted to voting only for a party or political grouping, and cannot express a preference for any candidate within a party list. See also Open list.
Communal roll – A register of electors for which the qualification for registration is a determinable criterion such as religion, ethnicity, language or gender. All electors who meet the criterion may be entered in the communal roll automatically, or each such elector may be able to choose whether or not to be entered. This register is used for the election of representatives of the group defined by the criterion from electoral districts specified for that purpose.
Diaspora – Population of a country who have migrated abroad and keep strong identity ties with the homeland.
Diplomatic mission – A formal representation of a country in another country recognized under the Vienna Convention, for example an embassy, high commission or consulate.
Distance voting – See Remote voting.
E-voting – Short form for electronic voting. Any method of voting using electronic means. Examples include casting a vote through the Internet, by personal digital assistant (PDA), telephone or mobile phone, or digital television.
Elector – A person who is both qualified and registered to vote in an election.
Electoral district – One of the geographical areas into which a country, local authority or supranational institution may be divided for electoral purposes. An electoral district may elect one or more representatives to an elected body. See Multi-member district and Single-member district.
Electoral law – One or more pieces of legislation governing all aspects of the process for electing the political institutions defined in a country’s constitution or institutional framework.
Electoral management body (EMB) – The organization tasked under the electoral law with responsibility for the conduct of elections. The EMB in most countries consists either of an independent commission appointed for the purpose or of part of a specified government department.
Electoral register – The list of persons registered as qualified to vote.
Electoral regulations – Rules subsidiary to legislation made, often by the electoral management body, under powers contained in the electoral law which govern aspects of the organization and administration of an election.
Electoral system – That part of the electoral law and regulations which determines how parties and candidates are elected to a representative body. Its three most significant components are the electoral formula, the ballot structure and the district magnitude.
Electorate – May have one of two distinct meanings: (a) the total number of electors registered to vote in an electoral district; and (b) a synonym for electoral district used predominantly in some anglophone countries. See Electoral district.
Electronic voting – See e-voting.
Entitlement restrictions – Provisions in the electoral law and regulations of a country which govern the practical requirements for an elector to cast his or her vote. They may be of two types, legal and administrative.
External districts – Electoral districts of which the electorate is made up of external electors, from which representatives are elected to reserved seats.
External elector – An elector who is registered as resident outside his or her country of citizenship or otherwise as being not present in his or her country of citizenship.
External voting – The inclusion in the electoral law and regulations of a country of provisions and procedures which enable some or all electors of a country who are temporarily or permanently outside the country to exercise their voting rights from outside the territory of the country.
Fax voting – A mechanism of voting in which an elector receives and returns the voting material by fax.
Gerrymandering – The deliberate manipulation of electoral district boundaries so as to advantage or disadvantage a particular political interest.
Host country – A country that allows external voting to take place on its territory by electors from another country.
Immigrant – A person who is accepted as a resident by a country other than that of his or her citizenship.
Intention to return – A specific commitment from a person living outside his or her country of citizenship to return to that country within a specified term, in order to ensure the exercise of defined rights.
Internal voting – Voting inside a country which is holding an election.
Internally displaced person (IDP) – A refugee within the borders of his or her own country.
List proportional representation (List PR) – An electoral system in which each participant party or grouping presents a list of candidates for an electoral district, voters vote for a party, and parties receive seats in proportion to their overall share of the vote. Winning candidates are taken from the lists. List PR systems include Closed list and Open list.
Migrant worker – A person who migrates abroad with the main purpose of obtaining a wage-earning job, often of a nature not requiring qualifications, and often for the purpose of sending remittances to relatives in the country of citizenship.
Multi-member district – An electoral district from which more than one representative is elected to a legislature or elected body. See also Single-member district.
Multiple citizenship – The possession by a person of the citizenship, and consequential political rights and obligations, of more than one country.
Naturalization – The acquisition by an immigrant of citizenship of the country in which he or she is now resident.
Non-refoulement – The principle in the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees that ‘No Contracting State shall expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion’.
Officer on duty abroad – Any public servant carrying out duties abroad, for example representing his or her government or any regional or international official organization.
Official external polling site – A diplomatic mission or other official site of one country, which is holding an election, within another, the host country, where a polling site is set up.
Open list – A form of List PR in which voters can express a preference both for a party or grouping and for one, or sometimes more, candidates within that party or grouping. See also Closed list.
Out-of-country voting – See External voting.
Permanent resident abroad – A person who has established his or her permanent home in a country other than that of his/her citizenship in accordance with the laws of that country.
Personal voting – A mechanism for voting in which an elector attends at a polling station or polling site in person in order to cast his/her vote.
Plurality/majority systems – Plurality/majority electoral systems are based on the principle that a candidate(s) or party with a plurality of votes (i.e. more than any other) or a majority of votes (i.e. 50 per cent plus one—an absolute majority) is/are declared the winner(s). Such a system may use single-member districts—for example, First Past The Post, Alternative Vote or the Two-Round System—or multi-member districts—for example, the Block Vote and Party Block Vote.
Preferential voting systems – Electoral systems in which voters rank parties or candidates on the ballot paper in order of their choice.
Political party – A group of people who hold similar political aims and opinions who have organized, usually to contest elections so that they might form a government. Polling site – A venue, for example a post office or a diplomatic mission, at which an elector exercising the right to remote voting attends to deposit his or her vote.
Polling station – A venue established for the purpose of polling and controlled by staff of the electoral management body.
Postal voting – A mechanism for voting in which an elector completes his or her ballot paper and returns it by post to an official designated to conduct the election.
Proportional representation (PR) – An electoral system family based on the principle of the conscious translation of the overall votes of a party or grouping into a corresponding proportion of seats in an elected body. For example, a party which wins 30 per cent of the votes will receive approximately 30 per cent of the seats. All PR systems require the use of multi-member districts. There are two major types of PR system, List PR and the Single Transferable Vote (STV).
Proxy voting – A mechanism for voting in which an elector who is qualified to vote formally appoints another person to vote on his or her behalf.
Refugee – A person who migrates from his or her home and country as a result of political, religious, ethnic, social or cultural conflicts which directly affect him or her.
Remote voting – A mechanism for voting by which voters are enabled to cast a vote which does not involve their attendance at a polling station on the day or days fixed for voting. Methods of remote voting include postal voting, fax voting, and remote e-voting.
Remote e-voting – A mechanism for voting in which an elector may cast his or her vote by means of an electronic device (for example a telephone or the Internet) at any place outside the polling station to which he or she is allocated.
Reserved seats – Seats in which a determinable criterion such as religion, ethnicity, language, gender or external registration is a requirement for nomination or election. See External districts.
Resident – A person who lives legally in a country on a long-term basis.
Returnee – An internally displaced person or refugee who has returned home but requires continued assistance for a period of time.
Single-member district – An electoral district from which only one member is elected to a legislature or elected body. See also Multi-member district.
Special external polling station – A public or private place located within a host country where the establishment of a polling station is permitted by that host country.
