Absentee voting – Another term for remote voting.
Additional Member System – Another term for Mixed Member Proportional System.
Alternative Vote (AV) – A candidate-centred preferential plurality/majority system used in single-member districts in which voters use numbers to mark their preferences on the ballot paper. A candidate who receives an absolute majority (50 per cent plus 1) of valid first-preference votes is declared elected. If no candidates achieves an absolute majority of first preferences, the least successful candidates are eliminated and their votes reallocated until one candidate has an absolute majority of valid votes remaining.
Apparentement – A term of French origin for a provision which can be included in List Proportional Representation (List PR) systems which enables two or more parties or groupings which fight separate campaigns to reach agreement that their votes will be combined for the purpose of seat allocation. See also Lema and Stembusaccord.
Average district magnitude – For a country, local authority or supranational institution, the number of representatives to be elected divided by the number of electoral districts. See also District magnitude.
Ballotage – Another term for a two-round system, used primarily in Latin America.
Ballot structure – The way in which electoral choices are presented on the ballot paper, in particular whether the ballot is candidate-centred or party-centred.
Bicameral legislature – A legislature made up of two houses, usually known as an upper house and a lower house.
Block Vote (BV) – A plurality/majority system used in multi-member districts in which electors have as many votes as there are candidates to be elected. Voting is candidate-centred. The candidates with the highest vote totals win the seats.
Borda Count (BC) – A candidate-centred preferential system used in either single- or multi-member districts in which voters use numbers to mark their preferences on the ballot paper and each preference marked is then assigned a value using equal steps. For example, in a ten-candidate field a first preference I worth one, a second preference is worth 0.9 and so on, with a tenth preference worth 0.1. These are summed and the candidate(s) with the highest total(s) is/are declared elected. See also Modified Borda Count.
Boundary Delimitation – The process by which a country, local authority area or area of a supranational institution is divided into electoral districts.
Candidate-centred ballot – A form of ballot in which an elector chooses between candidates rather than between parties and political groupings.
Circoncscription – The term most frequently used for electoral district in francophone countries. See Electoral district.
Closed list – A form of List 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 and Free 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 be the criterion from electoral districts specified for that purpose.
Compensatory Seats – The List PR seats in a Mixed Member Proportional system which are awarded to parties or groupings to correct disproportionality in their representation in the results of elections held under the first part of the MMP system, normally under a plurality/majority system.
Constituency – A synonym for electoral district used predominantly in some Anglophone countries. See Electoral district.
Contiguous district – An electoral district that can be enclosed in a single continuous boundary line.
Cross-cutting cleavages – Political allegiances of voters which cut across ethnic, religious and class divisions in a society.
Cumulation – The capacity within some electoral systems for voters to cast more than one vote for a favoured candidate.
Democratic consolidation – The process by which a country’s political institutions and democratic procedures become legitimized, stable and broadly accepted by both political actors and the wider population.
D’Hondt Formula – One of the options for the series of divisors used to distribute seats in List PR systems which adopt the Highest Average Method. The votes of a party or grouping are divided successively by 1, 2, 3… as seats are allocated to it. Of the available formulas, D’Hondt tends to be the most favourable to larger parties. See also Saint-Laguë Formula.
Distribution requirements – The requirement that to win election a candidate must win not merely a specified proportion of the vote nationally but also a specified degree of support in a number of different states or regions.
District – Used in this topic area to mean electoral district.
District magnitude – For an electoral district, the number of representatives to be elected from it. See also Average district magnitude.
Droop Quota – A variant of quota used in proportional representation systems which use the Largest Remainder Method, defined as the total valid vote divided by the number of seats to be filled in the electoral district plus one. Also known as Hagenbach-Bischoff Quota. See Quota (a). See also Hare Quota and Imperiali Quota.
Elector – A person who is both qualified and registered to vote at an election.
Electoral district – One of the geographic areas into which a country, local authority or supranational institution may be divided for electoral purposes. See also Circonscription, Constituency, Electorate (b) and Riding. An electoral district may elect one or more representatives to an elected body. See Single-member district and Multi-member district.
Electoral formula – That part of the electoral system dealing specifically with the translation of votes into seats.
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 electoral law with the 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 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 body as representatives. 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.
b. A synonym for electoral district used predominantly in some anglophone countries. See Electoral district.
External voting – A mechanism by which voters who are permanently or temporarily absent from a country are enabled to cast a vote, also called out-of-country voting.
First Past The Post (FPTP) – The simplest form of plurality/majority electoral system, using single-member districts and candidate-centred voting. The winning candidate is the one who gains more votes than any other candidate, even if this is not an absolute majority of valid votes.
Free list – A form of List PR in which voters may vote for a party or grouping and in addition for one or more candidates, whether or not those candidates are nominated by that party or grouping. Also known as panachage. See also Closed list and Open list.
Gerrymandering – The deliberate manipulation of electoral district boundaries so as to advantage or disadvantage a particular political interest.
Hagenbach-Bischoff Quota – Another term for the Droop Quota.
Hare Quota – A variant of quota used in proportional representation systems which use the Largest Remainder Method, defined as the total valid vote divided by the number of seats to be filled in the electoral district. See Quota (a). Also known as Hare-Niemeyer. See also Droop Quota and Imperiali Quota.
Heterogeneous district – An electoral district in which, either by design or as a result of the operation of other criteria for boundary delimitation, the electorate manifests social, ethnic, religious or linguistic diversity.
Highest Average Method – A principle for converting votes into seats in List PR systems. One seat is allocated in a district at each of a series of counts to the party or grouping with the highest vote total. When a seat is allocated, the original vote of the party that wins it is reduced by division. The most common series of divisors used are D’Hondt and Sainte-Leaguë. The Highest Average Method tends to be more favourable to larger parties than its alternative, the Largest Remainder Method.
Homogenous district – An electoral district in which, either by design or as a result of the operation of other criteria for boundary delimitation, the electorate manifests substantial social, ethnic, religious or linguistic uniformity.
Hybrid System – The result of dividing a country into two or more non-overlapping areas, in each of which a different electoral system is used.
Imperiali Quota – A variant of quota used in proportional representation systemswhich use the Largest Remainder Method, deined as the toal valid vote divided by the number of seats to be filled in the electoral district plus two. See also Droop Quota and Hare Quota.
Index of disproportionality – A figure which is designed to measure the degree of deviation from proportionality in the allocation of seats to parties or groupings which participated in the election. It is most commonly defined as the square root of the sum of the squares of the differences for each party or grouping between the percentage of votes received and the percentage of seats gained.
Invalid votes – Votes which cannot be counted in favour of any participant in an election due to accidental or deliberate errors of marking by the voter.
Largest Remainder Method – A principle for converting votes into seats in List PR systems. After parties and groupings have been allocated seats in an electoral district because they have received full quotas (a) of votes, some seats will be unfilled, and some votes remain – for each party, less than a full quota (a). The remaining seats are then awarded to parties and groupings in order of the number of left/over votes they possess. The Largest Remainder Method tends to be more favourable to smaller parties than the alternative approach, the Highest Average Method.
Lema – A term used in Latin America for an umbreslla list including two or more sub-lists which receive votes separately byt whose votes are counted together for the purposes of seat allocation in some List PR systems. See also Apparentement and Stembusaccord.
Limited Vote (LV) – An electoral systemused in multi-member districts in which electors have more than one vote, but fewer votes than there are candidates to be elected. The candidates with the highest vote totals win the seats, in the same way as in a Block Vote system and in SNTV.
List Proportional Representation (List PR) – A 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. See Closed list, Open list and Free list.
Lower house – One of the two chambers in a bicameral legislature, usually seen as comprising `the representatives of the people’. It is the more powerful chamber when the powers of the two chambers are unequal.
Majoritarian – Designed to produce an absolute majority (50 per cent plus 1) of votes.
Malapportionment – The uneven distribution of voters between electoral districts.
Manufactured majority – An election result, more commonly found where a plurality/majority system is used, in which a single party or coalition wins less than 50 per cent of the valid votes but an absolute majority of the seats in an elected body.
Member state – A country which is a member of a supranational institution, for example the European Union.
Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) – A mixed system in which all the voters use the first electoral system, usually a plurality/majority system, to elect some of the representatives to an elected body/ The remaining seats are then allocated to parties and groupings using the second electoral system, normally List PR, so as to compensate for disproportionality in their representation in the results from the first electoral system.
Mixed systems – A system in which the choices expressed by voters are used to elect representatives through two different systems, one proportional representation system and one plurality/majority system. There are two kinds of mixed systems: Parallel systems and Mixed Member Proportional systems.
Modified Borda Count – A candidate-centred, preferential system used in either single- or multi-member districts in which voters use numbers to mark their preferences on the ballot paper and each preference marked is then assigned a value calculated by using the series of divisors 1, 2, 3… For example, in a ten-candidate field a first preference is worth one, a second preference is worth 0.5, a third preference 0.3333, and so on. These are summed and the candidate(s) with the highest total(s) is/are declare elected. See also Borda Count.
Multi-member district – A district from which more than one representative is elected to a legislature or elected body. See also Single-member district.
Multiple-tier system – An electoral system in which two or more sets of representatives are elected to the same chamber by the entire electorate of a country. The multiple tiers may be electoral districts defined at different levels within a country, for example, single-member districts and regions, or regions and the country as a whole. Systems in which two distinct sets of representatives are elected from the same level are also multiple-tier systems. All mixed systems are multiple-tier systems.
One Person One Vote One Value – A principle of representation in which each elected representative represents the same number of electors, and under which malapportionment is minimized.
Open list – A form of List PR in which voters can express a preference both for a party or grouping for one, or sometimes more, candidates within that party or grouping. See also Closed list and Free list.
Out-of-country voting – A mechanism by which voters who are permanently or temporarily absent from a country are enabled to case a vote. See External voting. See also Remote voting.
Overhang mandate – See Überhangsmandat.
Panachage – The term used in francophone countries for the version of List PR in which voters may vote for a party or grouping and in addition for one or more candidates, whether or not those candidates are nominated by that party or grouping. See also Free list.
Parallel System – A mixed system in which the choices expressed by the voters are used to elect representatives through two different systems, usually one plurality/majority system and one proportional representation system, but where no account is taken of the seats allocated under the first system in calculating the results in the second system. See also Mixed-Member Proportional.
Party Block Vote (PBV) – A plurality/majority system using multi-member districts in which voters cast a single party-centred vote for a party of choice, and do not choose between candidates. The party with most votes will win every seat in the electoral district.
Party-centred ballot – A form of ballot in which a voter chooses between parties or groupings, rather than individual candidates.
Party magnitude – For an electoral district, the average number of representatives elected by each party and grouping. For a country, the average of the party magnitudes for all electoral districts.
Personation – The fraudulent casting of the vote of a registered elector by another person.
Plurality/majority systems – Plurality/majority 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. The Alternative Vote, the Borda Count, the Single Transferable Vote and the Supplementary Vote are all examples of preferential voting systems.
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).
Quota – May have one of two distinct meanings:
a. The number of votes which guarantees a party of candidate two win one seat in a particular electoral district in a proportional representation system. There are three variants in common use, the Hare, Droop (or Hagenbach-Bischoff) and Imperiali quotas.
b. A number of seats in an elected body or a proportion of candidates nominated by a party or grouping which are required by law to be filled by representatives of a particular kind; most commonly used to ensure the nomination and election of a minimum number of women.
Regional fiefdom – A situation in which one party wins all, or nearly all, of the seats in a particular geographic region or a country.
Remote voting – A mechanism 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. See also Out-of-country voting.
Reserved seats – Seats in which a determinable criterion such as religion, ethnicity, language or gender is a requirement for nomination or election.
Riding – A synonym for electoral district used in some countries. See Electoral district.
Sainte-Laguë Formula – one of the options for the series of divisors used to distribute seats in List PR systems which adopt the Highest Average Method. The votes of a party or grouping are divided successively by 1, 3, 5… as seats are allocated to it. See also D’Hondt Formula.
Single-member district – An electoral district from which only one member is elected to a legislature or elected body. See also Multi-member district.
Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) – An electoral system in which voters vast a single candidate-centred vote for one candidate in a multi-member district. The candidates with the highest vote totals are declared elected.
Single Transferable Vote (STV) – A preferential candidate-centred proportional representation system used in multi-member districts. Candidates that surpass a specified quota (see Quota (a)) of first-preference votes are immediately elected. In successive counts, votes are redistributed from least successful candidates, who are eliminated, and votes surplus to the quota are redistributed from successful candidates, until sufficient candidates are declared elected.
Spoilt votes – See Invalid votes.
State – Used in this topic area to denote a sub-national unit of a country often in the context of a federal constitution.
Stembusaccord – A term of Dutch origin for a provision which can be included in List PR systems which enables two or more parties or groupings which are fighting separate campaigns to reach agreement that their votes will be combined for the purpose of seat allocation. See also Apparentement and Lema.
Supplementary vote – A candidate-centred, preferential plurality/majority system, similar to the Alternative Vote. If no candidate achieves an absolute majority of first preferences, all candidates except the two leading candidates are eliminated and their votes reallocated according to the second, third and so on preferences expressed. The candidate with the highest number of votes is declared elected.
Supranational institution – an organization created by a number of countries by treaty where power is held by independent appointed officials or by representatives elected by the legislatures or people of the member states.
Threshold – The minimum level of support which a party needs to gain representation in the legislature. A threshold may be a formal threshold, which is a figure laid down in the constitution or the law, usually in the form of a percentage of the valid votes cast, or an effective or natural threshold, which is a mathematical property of the electoral system in use.
Two-Round System (TRS) – A plurality/majority system in which a second election is held if no candidate achieves a given level of votes, most commonly an absolute majority (50 per cent plus one), in the first election round.
A Two-Round System may take a majority-plurality form, in which it is possible for more than two candidates to contest the second round. An example is the French system, in which any candidate who has received the votes of over 12.5 per cent of the registered electorate in the first round can stand in the second round. The candidate who wins the highest number of votes in the second round is then declared elected, regardless of whether they have won an absolute majority. Alternatively, a Two-Round System may take a majority run-off form, in which only the top two candidates in the first round contest the second round.
Überhangsmandat – An additional seat in a legislature which results in an MMP system when a party or grouping wins more seats in a region under the first, usually plurality/majority, electoral system than the number to which it would be entitled in total on the basis of its proportion of the vote. Also known as excess mandate or overhang mandate.
Upper house – One of the two chambers in a bicameral legislature, often seen either as containing `the representatives of regions/federal states’ or as `a chamber of review’. The less powerful chamber when the powers of the two chambers are unequal.
Wasted votes – Valid votes which no not ultimately count towards the election of any candidate or party.
