The core idea of representative democracy is that the citizens elect the individuals who hold executive and legislative power, irrespective of the territorial articulation, whether it is a parliamentary or a presidential system, and even whether the form of government adopted by each state is monarchic or republican, with the obvious exception of the king.
The horizontal and vertical form of organisation by which the powers are separated determines the specific jurisdictions of those who hold public office and the relations among them but not the fact that their only source of democratic legitimacy and the only legitimate procedure of access to power will be the holding of free and fair elections.
The territorial structure adopted in each state stems from historical and political reasons that, ultimately, shape its own constitutional history. It is highly doubtful that one can refer to territorial state models, insofar as each one of them is a particular combination of centralising and decentralising elements. Along general lines, though, we can refer to politically decentralised and centralised states.
To the effects of the legal structure of the electoral processes that we have to focus on here, the substantial difference between them lies in the authority to pass the legal procedures that regulate the respective elections. In centralised states, the laws and other electoral procedures at all levels are under the jurisdiction of the central government and usually form part of a general electoral code. In decentralised states, on the other hand, each individual is given ample capacity to determine the essential elements of the system that has to be applied at all territorial levels, without prejudice of the fact that one unit can be formed for voting throughout the national territory may be established. Thus, national procedures for the general elections and procedures for each one of the decentralised units that regulate their own elections coexist. There is another meaningful difference with regard to the local elections, which in centralised states fall under the jurisdiction of the central parliament, but whose regulation is usually granted to the different territorial parliaments in politically decentralised states.
From another point of view, the territorial structure of the state becomes important in electoral terms when it comes to establishing constituencies, an aspect we will deal with in Districts and Constituencies.
