Home > Electoral system

An electoral system is the use of particular voting systems to place some group of people in charge of administration of a legal system under pre-existing legal codes, which typically require special measures, e.g. constitutional change, to modify. Study of comparative political and electoral systems, and ethics in public life, is called civics.

An electoral system allows for varying degrees of power for political party mechanisms, which may or may not be formally recognized, but usually organize the recruiting and coaching of candidates, and provide much of the platform they promise to implement legislatively. Electoral reform is often motivated by dissatisfaction with the role of parties and perceptions of fairness in how groups of people with different political views are treated.

The most widespread electoral systems are:

• one-party state in which only members of a specific party can hold office, and only members of that party are empowered to vote on any measure (often indistinguishable from a dictatorship with no electoral system).
• presidential state in which the head of state is typically an elected executive, and has some degree of veto power over lower legislatures.
• parliamentary democracy in which a single legislature exercises power, and selects a prime minister to perform executive functions. This is almost always the party leader of the party with the most seats. The head of state in such a system is typically not elected at the same time, or at all, e.g. in a constitutional monarchyA constitutional monarchy is a form of government established under a constitutional system which acknowledges a hereditary or elected monarch as head of state. Modern constitutional monarchies usually implement the concept of trias politica, and have the where that head of state is a monarchThis article treats the generic title monarch . For the origins of the word king and its English use, see Germanic king. For other meanings of the word, see Monarch (disambiguation A monarch is a type of ruler or head of state. The word derives from Greek or appointed representative.

See also

• List of democracy and elections-related topicsThis is a list of articles related to democracy and the various aspects of a democratic system, most notably elections. In general, all the following articles have at least some connection with the democratic decision-making process. Government Government
• Criticisms of electoralismAlthough highly controversial at various points in history, representative democracy (and electoral systems in general) have become the modern civics global-standard. Nevertheless, criticism of electoralism continues both within the Western world and the
• Voting system
• Civics
• Electoral reform