0 a time when people vote in order to choose someone for a political or official job: --
1 the act or occasion of being chosen for a particular job, esp. by voting: --
2 a time when people vote to choose someone for an official job: --
3 the fact of being chosen for an official job by people voting for you: --
Prior to 1872, states could hold elections at their discretion.
An empirical analysis demonstrates that increases in democratic quality, measured independently from electoral activities, tend to be stronger directly after elections than in non-electoral periods.
Thus, the election really took place before the actual balloting.
To see this, consider an incumbent who is running for an election.
Using the drawn parameters, we then simulated 1,000 elections and recorded the magnitude of each midterm loss.
In political terms, it took an argument for boycotting the elections away from the opposition and provided it with an added incentive to participate.
Twentythree second elections resulted in a lower effective number of parties, while only seven second elections resulted in a higher effective number of parties.
Political parties of the so-called radical opposition boycotted the elections for this reason.
