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Definition: voting from Philip's Encyclopedia

Process employed to choose candidates for public office or to decide controversial issues. Early forms were by voice or sign, but the secret ballot became popular in order to eliminate the possibility of intimidation and corruption. Voters usually mark a piece of paper and deposit it in a ballot box, but in the USA voting machines, operated by polling levers, are commonly in use. See also democracy

Voting

From Encyclopedia of Power
Voting, which can take many forms, influences the allocation of power at many different levels of office. The most prominent form of voting selects politicians and parties contending for national office and provides ordinary citizens with the opportunity to weigh the performance of incumbents and decide whether to reelect them or vote in new officeholders. This system of reward or punishment gives ordinary people power over the political process by determining how political power is configured for the next few years. While voting in national elections is most conspicuous, citizens have many additional occasions for the opportunity to vote, including state, provincial, or regional elections; local elections; referendums (very common in Switzerland); and initiatives (prominent in California and some other U.S. states). These elections generally attract much lower turnout and attention than national elections, relatively little hinges on their outcomes, and citizens often do not pay much…
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Friday, Sep. 1, 2017 The debate over the continued use of the Electoral College resurfaced during the 2016 presidential election , when Donald Trump lost the general election to Hillary Clinton by over 2.8 million votes and won the Electoral College by 74 votes. The official general election results…
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Full text Article voting

From The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology
Sociological analysis of electoral behaviour, how and why people vote, has traditionally been based on a structural approach which seeks to identify the social structural determinants of voting. The party identification model is the main example of the approach. This assumes that voting patterns are…
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Full text Article voting

From Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology
This is a political right that all adults should exercise, but it does not always bring about a situation in which people can govern their own lives. Voting is therefore a necessary but not sufficient part of democracy . Although all politics requires an element of consensus, the notion that people…
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Full text Article voting

From Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought
The expression of a preference as a contribution to a collective choice . Voting by a show of hands is to be distinguished from voting by secret ballot. The second is no more than a contribution to a collective choice, while the first is a way both of making a choice and at the same time of…
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Full text Article voting

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
method of registering collective approval or disapproval of a person or a proposal. The term generally refers to the process by which citizens choose candidates for public office or decide political questions submitted to them. However, it may also describe the formal recording of opinion of a group…
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Full text Article voting

From Encyclopedia of American Government and Civics
Pull-lever vote-counting machines, like the one...
The right to vote in free and fair elections has often been thought to be the sine qua non of democratic citizenship ; it is the core principle that, more than any other, distinguishes democratic regimes from nondemocratic ones. In reality, of course, the picture is much more complex. The right to…
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Full text Article vote

From The Macquarie Dictionary
a formal expression of will, wish, or choice in some matter, whether of a single individual, as one of a number interested in common, or of a body of individuals, signified by voice, by ballot, etc. Plural: votes the means by which such expression is made, as a ballot, ticket, etc. Plural: votes the…
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Full text Article vote

From The American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language
a. A formal expression of preference for a candidate for office or for a proposed resolution of an issue: Let's decide the matter by vote. b. The act of voting: It took several votes to decide the matter. c. A means by which such a preference is made known, such as a raised hand or a marked ballot: …
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Full text Article Voting

From The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History
The right to vote in the United States has a complex history. In the very long run of more than 200 years, the trajectory of this history has been one of expansion: a far greater proportion of the population was enfranchised by the early twenty-first century than was true at the nation's birth. But…
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Full text Article vote

From The Chambers Dictionary
an expression of a wish or opinion in an authorized formal way; collective opinion, decision by a majority; a group of votes or voters collectively; a voter; the right to vote; a means by which a choice is expressed, such as a ballot; a ballot paper; the total number of votes cast; an earnest desire…
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