Preface

Among the most prized and revered democratic institutions are elections, and few other actions typify what it means to participate in the democratic process in the same way that turning up, casting a ballot, and then having that ballot be part of determining who will control power has. Elections are at the center of what we view as democracy and much ink has been spilled in attempting to explain just how essential the electoral action is to democracy.

In fact, scholarship about political regimes has long focused on their classification into simple categories: authoritarian, monarchical, democratic, etc. Designations that in large part rely directly on how, when, and if they hold meaningful electoral competitions for determining who will govern.

Among those who study democratic institutions that utilize a common definition, with near infinite variation of particulars, to simply classify a political system as being democratic or non-democratic. Their definitions are generally distillable too; does the nation hold regular elections? The very notion of regular elections provides common ground for discussing what is and what is not a democratic system.

Given the relative importance of elections to our wider understanding of democracy and its role in the world it is not surprising that explorations of elections particularly in the developed world abound and have explored both the impact of the electoral system and its institutions and the role of the individual voter in that system.

At the systemic level, the rules of the game matter greatly and the outcomes of elections are heavily influenced by how the rules are constructed, who is allowed to compete, what the field of competition looks like, and ultimately how who wins is decided.

My own background is heavily tilted toward US politics and public policy. The unique nature of the rules of the electoral game in the United States has greatly influenced its electoral outcomes, often to the chagrin of those who study elections and democracy. The US system with its levels of electoral control and competition creates a complicated landscape for those who wish to understand how elections are conducted and what influences them. The wide and deep literature on this subject illustrates that the differences between local, state, national, and ultimately presidential elections are substantial, driven by a variety of causes, and lead to unique outcomes.

In the United States, local elections are distinguished by low voter turnout, high voter information, and little partisan conflict. State and national elections have higher voter turnout and low voter information but also introduce the unique role of party into the electoral dynamic. The first-past-the-post system coupled with single-member districts both at the state and federal levels has led only two parties to emerge as substantial political forces that compete for legislative majorities in state legislatures and the US Congress.

**II**

**Section 4**

*by Olga Yanet Acuña Rodriguez*

*by Juan Cáceres Muñoz*

Elections in Historical Context **111**

**Chapter 7 113**

**Chapter 8 133** Judicialization and Citizens: Elites and Election Practices—Chile, 1860–1920

Presidential Elections of 1934 in Colombia and Mexico

The impacts of this reality alone shape who is likely to run for and have a serious chance at winning the election. This system, which rewards party loyalty over a lifetime, leads to only the most committed ideologues serving in elected office and that devotion to ideology has a substantial impact on the policy decisions that are implemented.

Even among what is one of the more advanced democratic systems, the electoral system itself plays a substantive and often determinant role in electoral outcomes. The importance of this impact of the electoral system is readily apparent as many of the chapters included in this edited volume indicate.

Like the influence of electoral systems, the role and impact of the individual voter and other players within the electoral system similarly have substantial and important impacts. Again, I draw from my own experience with the US system to provide an example of the potential that the participants in the electoral system are likely to have on the electoral outcomes.

Among the most studied aspects of the US electoral system is the role of low information voters on electoral outcomes. Low information voters typify many advanced democratic systems and are voters who, despite having little substantive knowledge about the candidates, issues, or policy positions advanced by those competing in the election, still vote. These voters have been shown to be influenced heavily by partisan affiliations, advertising by candidates, the physical appearance of candidates, and a variety of other considerations that have little to do with the qualifications of the individual candidate for elected office, or the policies would implement.

These low information voters often rely on a single piece of information, for example party identification or a particular advertisement, to make their electoral choice. For many low information voters their vote choice changes when additional information about the actual positions of the candidate are made clear. However, getting voters to engage with this information is difficult and borders on impossible in most US elections; voters simply don't know and generally don't care.

Together these two short examples provide a taste of what follows in this volume as authors from around the world attempt to explore both the impact of the electoral system of a variety of nations and the role of the individual voter in those systems.

It would be difficult to underestimate the impact that elections can have on the individuals who their decisions govern; indeed, to paraphrase what has become a recent truism in US politics, elections have consequences. Most often those consequences are felt not by the political class but by the governed.

Collectively, this and other work on elections serves an important purpose in better enlightening how elections work, don't work, and often are not what we expect at first glance. Our hope is that those who explore the chapters gain a better understanding of the elections, how they run, and their impact on the lives of those they impact.

> **Ryan M. Yonk, PhD** Utah State University, USA

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Section 1

Understanding Elections

Section 1
