A referendum is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a new policy or specific law, or the referendum may be only advisory. In some countries, it is synonymous with and also known as plebiscite, votation,popular consultation, ballot question, ballot measure, or proposition.
Voting is a method by which a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, convenes together for the purpose of making a collective decision or expressing an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holders of high office by voting. Residents of a jurisdiction represented by an elected official are called "constituents", and the constituents who choose to cast a ballot for their chosen candidate are called "voters." There are different systems for collecting votes, but while many of the systems used in decision-making can also be used as electoral systems, any which cater to proportional representation can only be used in elections.
Electronic voting is voting that uses electronic means to either aid or take care of casting and counting ballots.
The Help America Vote Act of 2002, or HAVA, is a United States federal law which passed in the House 357-48 and 92–2 in the Senate and was signed into law by President Bush on October 29, 2002. The bill was drafted in reaction to the controversy surrounding the 2000 U.S. presidential election, when almost two million ballots were disqualified because they registered multiple votes or no votes when run through vote-counting machines.
In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate of a given election. This is typically either the percentage of registered voters, eligible voters, or all voting-age people. According to Stanford University political scientists Adam Bonica and Michael McFaul, there is a consensus among political scientists that "democracies perform better when more people vote."
Vote counting is the process of counting votes in an election. It can be done manually or by machines. In the United States, the compilation of election returns and validation of the outcome that forms the basis of the official results is called canvassing.
Electronic voting machines for elections in Ireland were used on a trial basis in 2002, but plans to extend it to all polling stations were put on hold in 2004 after public opposition and political controversy. Electoral law was amended in 2001 and 2004 and sufficient voting machines for the entire state were purchased, but the plan was officially dropped in 2009 and the machines were subsequently scrapped. Elections continue to use paper ballots completed in pencil.
An absentee ballot is a vote cast by someone who is unable or unwilling to attend the official polling station to which the voter is normally allocated. Methods include voting at a different location, postal voting, proxy voting and online voting. Increasing the ease of access to absentee ballots is seen by many as one way to improve voter turnout through convenience voting, though some countries require that a valid reason, such as infirmity or travel, be given before a voter can participate in an absentee ballot. Early voting overlaps with absentee voting. Early voting includes votes cast before the official election day(s), by mail, online or in-person at voting centers which are open for the purpose. Some places call early in-person voting a form of "absentee" voting, since voters are absent from the polling place on election day.
Postal voting is voting in an election where ballot papers are distributed to electors by post, in contrast to electors voting in person at a polling station or electronically via an electronic voting system.
Elections in Hungary are held at two levels: general elections to elect the members of the National Assembly and local elections to elect local authorities. European Parliament elections are also held every 5 years.
BC-STV is the proposed voting system recommended by the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform in October 2004 for use in British Columbia, and belongs to the single transferable vote family of voting systems. BC-STV was supported by a majority of the voters in a referendum held in 2005 but the government had legislated that it would not be bound by any vote lower than 60 percent in favour. Because of the strong majority support for BC-STV, the government elected to stage a second referendum in 2009, but with increased public funding for information campaigns to better inform the electorate about the differences between the existing and proposed systems. The leadership of both the "yes" side and the "no" side were assigned by the government. The proposal was rejected with 60.9 percent voting against, vs. 39.1 percent in favour, in the 2009 vote.
Voting in Switzerland is the process by which Swiss citizens make decisions about governance and elect officials. The history of voting rights in Switzerland mirrors the complexity of the nation itself. The polling stations are opened on Saturdays and Sunday mornings but most people vote by post in advance. At noon on Sunday, voting ends and the results are usually known during the afternoon.
Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a voting method used in single-seat elections with more than two candidates. Instead of voting only for a single candidate, voters in IRV elections can rank the candidates in order of preference. Ballots are initially counted for each elector's top choice, losing candidates are eliminated, and ballots for losing candidates are redistributed until one candidate is the top remaining choice of a majority of the voters. When the field is reduced to two, it has become an "instant runoff" that allows a comparison of the top two candidates head-to-head.
In voting, a ballot is considered spoilt, spoiled, void, null, informal, invalid or stray if a law declares or an election authority determines that it is invalid and thus not included in the vote count. This may occur accidentally or deliberately. The total number of spoilt votes in a United States election has been called the residual vote. In Australia, such votes are generally referred to as informal votes, and in Canada they are referred to as rejected votes.
Electronic voting by country varies and may include voting machines in polling places, centralized tallying of paper ballots, and internet voting. Many countries use centralized tallying. Some also use electronic voting machines in polling places. Very few use internet voting. Several countries have tried electronic approaches and stopped because of difficulties or concerns about security and reliability.
There are five types of elections in the United Kingdom: elections to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, elections to devolved parliaments and assemblies, local elections, mayoral elections, and Police and Crime Commissioner elections. Within each of those categories, there may also be by-elections. Elections are held on Election Day, which is conventionally a Thursday, and under the provisions of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 the timing of general elections can be held at the discretion of the prime minister during any five-year period. All other types of elections are held after fixed periods, though early elections to the devolved assemblies and parliaments can occur in certain situations. The five electoral systems used are: the single member plurality system (first-past-the-post), the multi-member plurality, the single transferable vote, the additional member system, and the supplementary vote.
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This article summarises referendum laws and practice in various countries.
A non-binding referendum on electoral reform was held in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island between 27 October – 7 November 2016. This was the second electoral reform referendum to be held in Prince Edward Island, following a vote to maintain the status quo in 2005. The referendum asked which of five voting systems residents would prefer to use in electing members to the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island. The referendum involved four instant run-off counts and indicated mixed member proportional representation was the majority choice with 55.03% support on the final ballot, with support of 52.42% of votes cast.
Electronic voting in Switzerland started in 2003 in the canton of Geneva, where the residents of Anières cast their vote using the Internet. This was the first trial of e-voting in Switzerland. In the following years, the number of people able to use electronic voting grew as more and more cantons began adopting such a system.
Federal referendums were held in Switzerland on 7 March, 13 June, 26 September, and 28 November 2021. Swiss referendums take three forms: popular initiatives, which are citizen proposals to create a new law and require 100,000 valid signatures on a petition to get on the ballot; facultative or optional referendums, which are citizen proposals to approve or reject a piece of existing law and require 50,000 valid signatures on a petition to get on the ballot; and mandatory referendums, which are required to revise the constitution, join an international organisation or introduce emergency federal legislation for over a year.
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