New Zealand is a representative democracy in which members of the unicameral New Zealand Parliament gain their seats through elections. General elections are usually held every three years; they may be held at an earlier date at the discretion of the prime minister, but that usually only happens in the event of a vote of no confidence or other exceptional circumstances. A by-election is held to fill an electorate vacancy arising during a parliamentary term. Election day is always a Saturday, but advance voting is allowed in the lead-up to it. The most recent general election took place on 14 October 2023.
The National Party, also known as the Nationalist Party, was a political party in South Africa from 1914 to 1997, which was responsible for the implementation of apartheid rule. The party was an Afrikaner ethnic nationalist party, which initially promoted the interests of Afrikaners but later became a stalwart promoter and enactor of white supremacy, for which it is best known. It first became the governing party of the country in 1924. It merged with its rival, the South African Party (SAP), during the 1929-1939 Great Depression, and a splinter faction, the Re-United National Party became the official opposition during World War II and won power in 1948. With the National Party governing South Africa from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994, the country for the bulk of this time was only a de jure or partial democracy, as from 1958 onwards non-white people were barred from voting. In 1990, it began to style itself as simply a South African civic nationalist party, and after the fall of apartheid in 1994, attempted to become a moderate conservative one. The party's reputation was damaged irreparably by perpetrating apartheid, and it rebranded itself as the New National Party in 1997 before eventually dissolving in 2005.
In government, several constitutional arrangements use reserved political positions, especially when endeavoring to ensure the rights of women, minorities or other segments of society, or preserving a political balance of power.
In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate 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."
An electoraldistrict, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as (a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provide the voters therein with representation in a legislature or other polity. That legislative body, the state's constitution, or a body established for that purpose determines each district's boundaries and whether each will be represented by a single member or multiple members. Generally, only voters who reside within the district are permitted to vote in an election held there. The district representative or representatives may be elected by single-winenr first-past-the-post system, a multi-winner proportional representative system, or another voting method.
Bethnal Green and Bow was a constituency in Greater London, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament from 2010 until its abolition for the 2024 general election by Rushanara Ali of the Labour Party.
"General Electors" is the term formerly used in Fiji to identify citizens of voting age who belonged, in most cases, to ethnic minorities. The 1997 Constitution defined General Electors as all Fiji citizens who were not registered as being of Fijian, Indian, or Rotuman descent. Also included were citizens who did qualify to be registered in the above categories, but who chose not to be. Persons of biracial or multiracial ancestry could opt to enroll either as General Electors, or as descendants of any of the other three groups to which they had an ancestral claim. General Electors were thus a diverse electorate, whose members included Europeans, Chinese, Banaban Islanders, and many smaller groups. They were allocated 3 seats in the House of Representatives, the lower and more influential house of the Fijian Parliament.
Voter suppression are tactics used to discourage or prevent specific groups of people from voting or registering to vote. It is distinguished from political campaigning in that campaigning attempts to change likely voting behavior by changing the opinions of potential voters through persuasion and organization, activating otherwise inactive voters, or registering new supporters. Voter suppression, instead, attempts to gain an advantage by reducing the turnout of certain voters. Suppression is an anti-democratic tactic associated with authoritarianism.
Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Civic engagement includes communities working together or individuals working alone in both political and non-political actions to protect public values or make a change in a community. The goal of civic engagement is to address public concerns and promote the quality of the community.
The McGovern–Fraser Commission, formally known as Commission on Party Structure and Delegate Selection, was a commission created by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in response to the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention. It was composed of 28 members, selected by DNC chairman Senator Fred R. Harris in 1969 to rewrite the Democratic Party's rules regarding the selection of national convention delegates. Senator George McGovern and later Representative Donald M. Fraser led the commission, which is how it received its name. McGovern, who resigned from the commission in 1971 in order to run for president, won the first nomination decided under the new rules in 1972, but lost the general election to Richard Nixon.
Latino Americans have received a growing share of the national vote in the United States due to their increasing population. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, 62.1 million Latinos live in the United States, representing 18.9% of the total U.S. population, a 23% increase since 2010. This racial/ethnic group is the second largest after non-Hispanic whites in the U.S. In 2020, the states with the highest Hispanic or Latino populations were; Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Texas. According to the Brookings Institution, Latinos will become the nation's largest minority by 2045 and the deciding population in future elections.
Electoral geography is the analysis of the methods, the behavior, and the results of elections in the context of geographic space and using geographical techniques. Specifically, it is an examination of the dual interaction in which geographical affect the political decisions, and the geographical structure of the election system affects electoral results. The purpose of the analysis is to identify and understand driving factors and the electoral characteristics of territories in a broad and integrative manner.
In political science, political apathy is a lack of interest or apathy towards politics. This includes voter apathy, information apathy and lack of interest in elections, political events, public meetings, and voting.
Voter turnout in US elections is the total number of votes cast by the voting age population (VAP), or more recently, the voting eligible population (VEP), divided by the entire voting eligible population. It is usually displayed as a percentage, showing which percentage of eligible voters actually voted.
There are five types of elections in the United Kingdom: elections to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, elections to devolved parliaments and assemblies, local elections, mayoral elections, and Police and Crime Commissioner elections. Within each of those categories, there may also be by-elections. Elections are held on Election Day, which is conventionally a Thursday, and under the provisions of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 the timing of general elections can be held at the discretion of the prime minister during any five-year period. All other types of elections are held after fixed periods, though early elections to the devolved assemblies and parliaments can occur in certain situations. The five electoral systems used are: the single member plurality system (first-past-the-post), the multi-member plurality, the single transferable vote, the additional member system, and the supplementary vote.
These are lists of people who belong to non-European ethnic minorities and have been elected as Members of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, European Parliament, and other British devolved bodies, as well as members of the non-elected House of Lords.
The Latino vote or refers to the voting trends during elections in the United States by eligible voters of Latino background. This phrase is usually mentioned by the media as a way to label voters of this ethnicity, and to opine that this demographic group could potentially tilt the outcome of an election, and how candidates have developed messaging strategies to this ethnic group.
Simon Andrew Woolley, Baron Woolley of Woodford, is a British politician and activist. He is the founder and director of Operation Black Vote (OBV) and Trustee of the charity Police Now, and has been Principal of Homerton College, Cambridge, since October 2021.
