Election allows citizens to select their leaders and hold those leaders accountable for their actions. It also encourages broad public discussion of the issues that confront society.
In most large democratic countries elections are held at the local, state and national levels of government. The level of the election and whether or not it is affiliated with a political party (partisan) have a profound effect on electoral participation rates. Generally, those who are affiliated with a political party participate in elections at higher rates than those without such affiliations. Moreover, the frequency of elections is a key factor in voter turnout. Elections that occur frequently may lead to voter fatigue, and gerrymandering and wasted votes can distort the results.
The most prominent and famous elections in the world are the presidential, congressional and local elections. In the United States, a candidate for president is elected by a national popular vote and the Electoral College, which consists of 538 electors (435 for House of Representatives seats and 100 for the Senate plus 3 for Washington D.C). The winner is the candidate who receives at least 270 Electoral College votes.
Historically, disputes as to the outcome of an election occurred because it only took one senator and one representative to object, resulting in lengthy debates that often ran until well after 4 a.m. The Electoral Reform Act of 2000 altered this system. It now takes a majority of the total number of members of both houses to raise an objection, and it also created a mechanism by which a court-ordered revised certificate can supersede an earlier one.
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