Types of voting

TYPES OF VOTING

Introduction

Voting refers to the process of selecting a candidate of one’s choice. There are different ways of going about it but the most common is the casting of a vote during a general elections.

TYPES OF ELECTION

Secret voting

This type of voting has become the norm during general elections all over the world to elect people into office. A voter enters the polling booth, hidden away from the public and casts his or her vote. In other words, nobody can determine who the ballot was cast for. In other informal secret balloting, people are asked to write down their preference on a piece of paper and drop it in a container. The papers are picked and votes counted. Nobody knows exactly who voted in what direction. One advantage of a secret voting is that it prevents people from being victimized for voting in a particular way.

Open voting

This is another type of voting. Here, everybody sees who voted for which candidate. A voter goes to a polling station and joins the queue openly showing who they are voting for. In Nigeria, it is called Option A4. This type of voting may be adopted at formal or informal meetings where people are only required to raise their hands for the votes to be counted. In some parliaments, the Speaker may call for a head count if he or she is not too sure about the numbers. It is used in the classroom where students raise their hands to vote on an issue.

Proxy voting

This type of voting is adopted when the voter is so far away from the constituency or the country that he cannot be physically present to cast the vote. In such a case, another person is allowed to vote for him or her so that the vote is not lost. This method is usually adopted for those who live in other countries but want to participate in the political process of their home country.

Postal voting

As the name suggests, this type of voting is used for people who live away from their state or country and for some reasons cannot be present to vote on the day of the election. A ballot paper is provided to the qualified voter and he or she selects a preferred candidate and posts the ballot paper to a designated address to be factored into the vote count. The vote cast must reach the offices of the Electoral Commission before or on election.

Straw vote

This system is used to determine the direction in which a person is going to vote.  This is similar to an open vote but in this case, the vote is not yet official. It helps to show how an electorate thinks about a given issue and how he or she is likely to vote in the event that the vote is called. This system is applied in the U.S. Senate voting. The public is likely to know beforehand the outcome of a decision of the house when the vote eventually taken because the Senators indicate how they are likely to vote.

Exit vote

This system is used to determine how an electorate voted in an election. Usually, journalists or pollsters station just outside the polling station. When a voter comes out of the polling station they ask who he or she voted for. The results can be used to predict the general outcome of the polls.

Plural voting

This is a system of voting where some electorates are allowed to vote more than once in the same election. This system is adopted to place a premium on the opinion of highly educated people or people with a high level of wealth. This is legal. It is different from people who illegally vote multiple times to increase the votes of their preferred candidates in an election. This one is illegal.

ALSO READ:
The importance of voting
Reasons why people abstain from voting

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