Voting

"Vote" and "Voter" redirect here. For other uses, see Vote (disambiguation) and Voter (disambiguation).

Clockwise from top left: ballot for a referendum in Panama, ballot box for a French election, women voting in Bangladesh, an electronic voting machine in Brazil, a sign at a United States voting location, election inking on a man's finger in Afghanistan

Voting is the process of making collective decisions by means of submitting and then adding up individual choices. The choice voted upon is often an election of a member or members to conduct political representation, but the object of a vote can be anything, for example what kind of food to buy or whether a defendant is innocent or guilty. Voting can be formal, using ballots and specific rules, or informal using raised hands, shouts (such as when the voice vote is used), or movement to indicate preference.

Recent work has clarified the definition of voting beyond the classic decision-making procedure description. Research on herd animal voting behaviours show that voting can be emergent in groups as a signalling system mechanism to pressure minorities to abandon their preference in favor of cohesion with a prevailing option. It has also been pointed out that the activity of voting closely resembles divination rituals and random chooser games such as drawing lots. The purpose of these community decision rituals is to generate social psychological acceptance, and to harmonize the group definition about what has happened. Descriptions of voting that ignore the social psychological components, and assume an invented rather than evolved origin, fail to adequately account for how voting works in practice.

Choosing one or more officials or representatives by casting an oral vote or a ballot, a document that formally expresses the preference or preferences of a voter (also known as a constituent) as to whom should be elected or whom the voter likes and thinks has best chance to be elected. Voting can also be used to decide on policy usually by a majority but sometimes a super-majority is required. In republics and representative democracies, a portion of the population votes to choose representative government members.

Electoral systems, the procedure for converting votes cast into winners, vary depending on both the country and the political office. In many countries organizations work to reform the election system, usually to make it fairer and ensure that as many votes as possible are used to elect the winners.

In organizations and non-government settings, voting may occur in different ways: formally via a paper vote to elect others for example within a workplace, to elect members of political associations, or to choose roles for others; or informally with a spoken agreement or a raised hand or other gesture. In larger organizations, like countries, voting is generally confined to periodic elections.

All modern liberal democracies use voting by secret ballot to prevent individuals from becoming influenced by other people and to protect their political privacy. The objective of secret ballots is to try to achieve the most authentic outcome, without any risk of pressure, threat, or services linked to one's vote; this way, a person is able to express their actual preferences.

Voting often takes place at a polling station but voting can also be done remotely by mail or using internet voting (such as in Estonia). Voting is voluntary in some countries, like the UK, but it may be required by law in others, such as Australia.

Different voting machinery may be used such as lever voting machines, paper-based scanning systems, computerized tabulators and electronic voting machines, with an impact on the manner in which the ballot may be presented to the voter. Some forms of technology was adopted to produce quicker voting results, especially when the long ballot is used as in some U.S. jurisdictions. Internet voting is a possibility in the future. Studies of voters have found that they notice—and sometimes object to—the manner in which they vote and the technology that they have to use to cast their vote. The large "blanket' ballots of some instances of ranked voting and the lack of transparency in some uses of voting technology are noted. Alongside the voter having seen their preferred candidate elected or not, they color the voter's level of satisfaction with the electoral system as a whole.

Various types of ballots

Different voting systems use different ballot designs.

Ballots may be left blank for voter to write or mark their choice themselves; they might be printed by the party of choice; they might be printed and presented in balanced format giving each candidate equal space, with or without a space for the voter to cast a vote for a write-in candidate. The choice of different format may limit the secrecy of the cast vote. The use of mail-in ballots narrows the types of possible ballots.

Some ballots allow only one choice to be selected (single X voting); some ballots allow multiple choices to be selected (multiple X voting); some allow ranking of multiple options (ranked ballots), either to be used as back-up preferences or used in conjunction with the first preference.

Different voting systems allow each voter (also known as a constituent ) to cast a different number of votes - only one (single voting as in First-past-the-post voting, Single non-transferable voting and Single transferable voting); as many as are being elected in a multiple-member district (multiple voting as used in Plurality block voting); more than one but fewer than are being elected in a multiple-member district (Limited voting). Most allow a voter to put just one vote on each candidate, but cumulative voting allows a voter's votes to be piled on to one candidate.

With ranked voting, as used in instant-runoff voting system in some elections in Australia and the United States, and single transferable voting used in Ireland, Malta and other places, voters rank candidates in order of preference (1,2,3,4 etc.). At first, each vote is distributed to the candidate marked as the first preference. Later the vote may be transferred to a different candidate marked as a back-up preference. The vote is used for just one candidate at any one time (or split fractionally among multiple candidates but its fractions never adding up to more than one).

In the Quota Borda System (QBS), the voters also cast their preferences, 1,2,3,4... as they wish.

In a voting system that uses multiple votes (plurality block voting), the voter can vote for any subset of the running candidates. So, a voter might vote for Alice, Bob, and Charlie, rejecting Daniel and Emily. Approval voting uses such multiple votes.

In a voting system that uses a ranked vote, the voter ranks the candidates in order of preference. For example, they might mark a preference for Bob in the first place, then Emily, then Alice, then Daniel, and finally Charlie. Preferential voting systems, such as those used in Australia and Ireland, use a ranked vote.

In a voting system that uses a scored vote (or range vote), the voter gives each alternative a number between one and ten (the upper and lower bounds may vary). See cardinal voting systems.

Some multiple-winner systems such as the Single Non-Transferable Vote, SNTV, used in Afghanistan and Vanuatu give a single vote or one vote per elector even though multiple members are being elected in the district.

STV uses single ranked votes.

Block voting is often used when members of city councils are elected at-large.

Under cumulative voting, a voter casts multiple votes and can cast more than one vote for the same candidate.

The Condorcet rule is used (sometimes) in decision-making. The voters or elected representatives cast their preferences on one, some, or all options, 1,2,3,4... as in PR-STV or QBS.

Voting methods

"Voting method" redirects here; not to be confused with Electoral system.

Paper-based methods

Young woman's first vote. Cooktown, Australia.

The most common voting method uses paper ballots on which a voter either places an X or marks their preferences as in ranked voting. This may involve marking their support for a candidate or party whose identification is printed on the ballot, or a write-in where they write out the name of their preferred candidate (if it is not listed).

Ballot letters in Israel

An alternative method that is still paper-based known as ballot letters is used in Israel, where polling booths contain a tray with ballots for each party running in the elections; the ballots are marked with the letter(s) assigned to that party. Voters are given an envelope into which they put the ballot of the party they wish to vote for, before placing the envelope in the ballot box. The same system is also implemented in Latvia. The system is used commonly in open lists or primary elections, where voters must choose a single party whose candidates they are allowed to choose between.

In 19th century western Canada the "Oliver ballot" was used, where the voter was given a blank ballot and a range of colored pencils. He put a mark on the ballot with the pencil of the color of his preferred candidate.

Machine voting

Main articles: Voting machine and Electronic voting

Machine voting uses voting machines, which may be manual (e.g. lever machines) or electronic.

Online voting

Some countries allow people to vote online. Estonia was one of the first countries to use online voting: it was first used in their 2005 local elections.

Postal voting

Many countries allow postal voting, where voters are sent a ballot and return it by post.

Open ballot

In contrast to a secret ballot, an