Vote Today, For Better Tomorrow

Voting is a method of decision making wherein a group such as a meeting or an electorate attempts to gauge its opinion—usually as a final step following discussions or debates. Alternatives to voting include consensus decision making (which works to avoid polarization and the marginalization of dissent) and betting (as in an anticipatory democracy).

Most forms of democracy discern the will of the people by a common voting procedure:

Individual registration and qualification,
Opening the Election for a set time period,
Registration of voters at established voting locations,
Distribution of ballots with preset candidates, issues, and choices (including the write-in option in some cases),
Selection of preferred choices (oftentimes in secret, called a secret ballet),
Secure collection of ballets for unbiased counting, and
Proclamation of the will of the voters as the will of the people for their government.

Different voting systems use different types of vote. Suppose that the options in some election are Alice, Bob, Charlie, Daniel, and Emily.

In a voting system that uses a single vote, the voter can select one of the five that they most approve of. "First past the post" uses single votes. So, a voter might vote for Charlie. This precludes him voting for anyone else.

An improvement on the single vote system is to have run-off elections, or repeat first past the post, however, the winner must win by 50% plus one, called a simple majority. If subsequent votes must be used, often a candidate, the one with the fewest votes or anyone who wants to move their support to another candidate, is removed from the ballot.

In a voting system that uses a multiple vote, the voter can vote for any subset of the alternatives. So, a voter might vote for Alice, Bob, and Charlie, rejecting Daniel and Emily. Approval voting uses such multiple votes.

In a voting system that uses a ranked vote, the voter has to rank the alternatives in order of preference. For example, they might vote for Bob in first place, then Emily, then Alice, then Daniel, and finally Charlie. Many voting systems use ranked votes. See preference voting.

In a voting system that uses a scored vote (or range vote), the voter gives each alternative a number between one and ten (the upper and lower bounds may vary). See range voting.