Editing Election (section)

{{Short description|Process by which a population chooses the holder of a public office}}
{{Redirect|Elect|other uses|-elect|and|Election (disambiguation)}}
{{Redirect|Free election|the "free elections" of Polish kings|Royal elections in Poland}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2022}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2022}}
[[File:Election MG 3455.JPG|thumb|right|A [[ballot box]] used in [[2007 French presidential election|France]]]]
{{Elections}}
{{politics}}

An '''election''' is a formal [[group decision-making]] process whereby a [[population]] chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold [[Public administration|public office]].

Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern [[representative democracy]] has operated since the 17th century.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Manin |first=Bernard |title=The Principles of Representative Government |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1997 |isbn=9780511659935 |pages=1–7}}</ref> Elections may fill offices in the [[legislature]], sometimes in the [[executive (government)|executive]] and [[judiciary]], and for [[local government| regional and local government]]. This process is also used in many other private and [[business]] organizations, from clubs to [[voluntary association]] and [[corporation]]s.

The global use of elections as a tool for selecting representatives in modern representative democracies is in contrast with the practice in the democratic [[archetype]], ancient [[History of Athens |Athens]], where the elections were considered an [[oligarchy |oligarchic]] institution and most political offices were filled using [[sortition]], also known as allotment, by which officeholders were chosen by lot.<ref name=":0" />

[[Electoral reform]] describes the process of introducing fair [[electoral system]]s where they are not in place, or improving the fairness or effectiveness of existing systems. [[Psephology]] is the study of results and other [[statistics]] relating to elections (especially with a view to predicting future results). Election is the fact of electing, or being elected.

To ''elect'' means "to select or make a decision", and so sometimes other forms of ballot such as [[referendum]]s are referred to as elections, especially in the [[United States]] .