Ballot in the context of Voting booth

Voting is the process of choosing one or more officials or representatives by casting an oral vote or a ballot, a document that formally expresses voter's preference or preferences 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 political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) 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."

Institutional factors drive the vast majority of differences in turnout rates. For example, simpler parliamentary democracies where voters get shorter ballots, fewer elections, and a multi-party system that makes accountability easier see much higher turnout than the systems of the United States, Japan, and Switzerland.

The incumbent is the current holder of an office or position. In an election, the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the position that is up for election, regardless of whether they are seeking re-election.

There may or may not be an incumbent on the ballot: the previous holder may have died, retired, resigned; they may not seek re-election, be barred from re-election due to term limits, or a new electoral division or position may have been created, at which point the office or position is regarded as vacant or open. In the United States, an election without an incumbent on the ballot is an open seat or open contest.

A ballot box is a temporarily sealed container, usually a square box though sometimes a tamper resistant bag, with a narrow slot in the top sufficient to accept a ballot paper in an election but which prevents anyone from accessing the votes cast until the close of the voting period. A ballot drop box allows voters who have received a ballot by mail to submit it for counting in a self-service fashion. In the United States, ballot boxes are usually sealed after the end of polling, and transported to vote-counting centers.

The secret ballot, also known as the Australian ballot, is a voting method in which a voter's identity in an election or a referendum is anonymous. This forestalls attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vote buying. This system is one means of achieving the goal of political privacy.

Secret ballots are used in conjunction with various voting systems. The most basic form of a secret ballot uses paper ballots upon which each voter marks their choices. Without revealing the votes, the voter folds the ballot paper in half (if necessary) and places it in a sealed box. This box is later emptied for counting. An aspect of secret voting is the provision of a voting booth to enable the voter to write on the ballot paper without others being able to see what is being written. Today, printed ballot papers are usually provided, with the names of the candidates or questions and respective check boxes. Provisions are made at the polling place for the voters to record their preferences in secret, and the ballots are designed to eliminate bias and prevent anyone from linking voters to the ballot.

A polling place is where voters cast their ballots in elections. The phrase polling station is also used in American English, British English and Canadian English although a polling place is the building and polling station is the specific room (or part of a room) where voters cast their votes. A polling place can contain one or more polling stations. In Australian English and New Zealand English, "polling place" and "polling centre" are used. Americans also use the term voting precinct in some states.

Since elections generally take place over a one- or two-day span on a periodic basis, often annual or longer, polling places are usually located in facilities used for other purposes, such as schools, churches, fire stations, public libraries, sports halls, Gym, Post office, Community centre, Retirement home, local government offices, Metro and Railway Stations or even private homes, Hotel, Bank, Restaurants, Fitness centres, Private Shops, and may each serve a similar number of people. The area may be known as a ward, precinct, polling district, or constituency. The polling place is staffed by officials (who may be called Returning Officers and election judges, or other titles) who monitor the voting procedures and assist voters with the election process. Scrutineers (or poll-watchers) are independent or partisan observers who attend the poll to ensure the impartiality of the process.

Abstention is a term in election procedure for when a participant in a vote either does not go to vote (on election day) or, in parliamentary procedure, is present during the vote but does not cast a ballot. Abstention must be contrasted with "blank vote", in which a voter casts a ballot willfully made invalid by marking it wrongly or by not marking anything at all. A "blank voter" has voted, although their vote may be considered a spoilt vote, depending on each legislation, while an abstaining voter has not voted. Both forms (abstention and blank vote) may or may not, depending on the circumstances, be considered to be a protest vote (also known as a "blank vote"). Abstention is related to political apathy and low voter turnout.

An abstention may be used to indicate the voting individual's ambivalence about the measure, or mild disapproval that does not rise to the level of active opposition. Abstention can also be used when someone has a certain position about an issue, but since the popular sentiment supports the opposite, it might not be politically expedient to vote according to their conscience. A person may also abstain when they do not feel adequately informed about the issue at hand, or have not participated in relevant discussion. In parliamentary procedure, a member may be required to abstain in the case of a real or perceived conflict of interest.

Ballot access is rules and procedures regulating the right to candidacy, the conditions under which a candidate, political party, or ballot measure is entitled to appear on voters' ballots in elections in the United States.

The jurisprudence of the right to candidacy and right to create a political party are less clear than voting rights in the United States. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has established in multiple cases that the federal constitution does not recognize a fundamental right to candidacy, and that state governments have a legitimate government interest in blocking "frivolous or fraudulent candidacies". As election processes are decentralized by Article I, Section 4, of the United States Constitution, ballot access laws are established and enforced by the states. As a result, ballot access processes may vary from one state to another.

An X mark (also known as an ex mark or a cross mark or simply an X or ex or a cross) is either used to indicate the concept of negation (for example "no, this has not been verified", "no, that is not the correct answer" or "no, I do not agree"), or indicate affirmation (for example, in election ballot papers, legal documents, or maps as an x-marks-the-spot). When used to mean "no," its opposite is often considered to be the O mark used in Japan and Korea or the check mark (✓) used in the West. When used to mean "yes," it is often completely interchangeable with a check mark. In Japanese, the X mark (❌) is called "batsu" (ばつ) and can be expressed by someone by crossing their arms.

It is also used as a replacement for a signature for a person who is blind or illiterate and thus cannot write their name. Typically, the writing of an X used for this purpose must be witnessed to be valid.

Electoral fusion in the United States is an arrangement where two or more United States political parties on a ballot list the same candidate, allowing that candidate to receive votes on multiple party lines in the same election.

Electoral fusion is also known as fusion voting, cross endorsement, multiple party nomination, multi-party nomination, plural nomination and ballot freedom.

A mixed single vote (MSV) is a type of ballot in mixed-member electoral systems, where voters cast a single vote in an election, which is used both for electing a local candidate and as a vote for a party affiliated with that candidate according to the rules of the electoral system. Unlike most mixed proportional and mixed majoritarian systems (such as parallel voting) where voters cast two votes, split-ticket voting is not possible under MSV. This significantly reduces the possibility of manipulating compensatory mixed systems, at the price of reducing voter choice. An alternative based on the mixed single vote that still allows for indicating different preferences on different levels is the mixed ballot, which functions as a preferential (mixed) single vote.

With MSV, voters usually cast their single vote for a local candidate in a single-member district (SMD) and then all votes (or just the wasted votes, depending on the system) from this lower tier are added to distribute seats between upper tier candidates, typically national party lists. How proportional the outcome is depends on many factors including the vote transfer rules (which votes are recounted as party list votes), whether there is a seat linkage, and other parameters (e.g. the number of list seats) used in the system. MSV systems originate from Germany and variations are currently used in Bolivia, Lesotho and Hungary for local elections in larger municipalities.

The term ticket can mean different things in relation to elections of councils or legislative bodies. First, it may refer to a single election choice which fills more than one political office or seat. For example, in Guyana, the candidates for President and Parliament run on the same "ticket", because they are elected together on a single ballot question — as a vote for a given party-list in the Parliamentary election counts as a vote for the party's corresponding presidential candidate — rather than separately.

A ticket can also refer to a political group or political party. In this case, the candidates for a given party are said to be running on the party's ticket. "Straight party voting" (most common in some U.S. states) is voting for the entire party ticket, including every office for which the party has a candidate running. Particularly in the era of mechanical voting machines, it was possible to accomplish this in many jurisdictions by the use of a "party lever" which automatically cast a vote for each member of the party by the activation of a single lever. "Ticket splitters" are people who vote for candidates from more than one political party when they vote for public offices, voting on the basis of individual personalities and records instead of on the basis of party loyalties.