1.
Election
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An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated since the 17th century, Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the executive and judiciary, and for regional and local government. This process is used in many other private and business organizations. Electoral reform describes the process of introducing fair electoral systems where they are not in place, psephology is the study of results and other statistics relating to elections. To elect means to choose or make a decision, and so other forms of ballot such as referendums are referred to as elections. Elections were used as early in history as ancient Greece and ancient Rome, and throughout the Medieval period to select rulers such as the Holy Roman Emperor, in Vedic period of India, the raja of a gana was apparently elected by the gana. The raja belonged to the noble Kshatriya varna, and was typically a son of the previous raja, however, the gana members had the final say in his elections. The Pala king Gopala in early medieval Bengal was elected by a group of feudal chieftains, such elections were quite common in contemporary societies of the region. In Chola Empire, around 920 CE, in Uthiramerur, palm leaves were used for selecting the village committee members, the leaves, with candidate names written on them, were put inside a mud pot. To select the members, a young boy was asked to take out as many leaves as the number of positions available. This was known as the Kudavolai system, ancient Arabs also used election to choose their caliph, Uthman and Ali, in the early medieval Rashidun Caliphate. Questions of suffrage, especially suffrage for minority groups, have dominated the history of elections, males, the dominate cultural group in North America and Europe, often dominated the electorate and continue to do so in many countries. Early elections in such as the United Kingdom and the United States were dominated by landed or ruling class males. However, by 1920 all Western European and North American democracies had universal male suffrage. Despite legally mandated universal suffrage for males, political barriers were sometimes erected to prevent fair access to elections. The question of who may vote is an issue in elections. In Australia Aboriginal people were not given the right to vote until 1962, suffrage is typically only for citizens of the country, though further limits may be imposed. However, in the European Union, one can vote in municipal elections if one lives in the municipality and is an EU citizen, the nationality of the country of residence is not required
2.
Primary election
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A primary election is an election that narrows the field of candidates before a general election for office. Primary elections are one means by which a party or a political alliance nominates candidates for an upcoming general election or by-election. Primaries are common in the United States, where their origins are traced to the movement to take the power of candidate nomination from party leaders to the people. Other methods of selecting candidates include caucuses, conventions, and nomination meetings, where primary elections are organized by parties, not the administration, two types of primaries can generally be distinguished, Closed primary. In the case of closed primaries, internal primaries, or party primaries, all voters can take part in an open primary and may cast votes on a ballot of any party. The party may require them to express their support to the partys values, in the United States, other types can be differentiated, Closed primary. People may vote in a primary only if they are registered members of that party prior to election day. Eleven states – Delaware, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, as in closed primaries, registered party members can vote only in their own partys primary. Semi-closed systems, however, allow unaffiliated voters to participate as well, depending on the state, independents either make their choice of party primary privately, inside the voting booth, or publicly, by registering with any party on Election Day. A registered voter may vote in any party primary regardless of his own party affiliation, eleven states - Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wisconsin - have open primaries. When voters do not register with a party before the primary, because of the open nature of this system, a practice known as raiding may occur. Raiding consists of voters of one party crossing over and voting in the primary of another party, the theory is that opposing party members vote for the weakest candidate of the opposite party in order to give their own party the advantage in the general election. An example of this can be seen in the 1998 Vermont senatorial primary with the nomination of Fred Tuttle as the Republican candidate in the general election, a registered voter need not publicly declare which political partys primary that they will vote in before entering the voting booth. When voters identify themselves to the officials, they must request a partys specific ballot. Only one ballot is cast by each voter, in many states with semi-open primaries, election officials or poll workers from their respective parties record each voters choice of party and provide access to this information. The primary difference between a semi-open and open system is the use of a party-specific ballot. In a semi-open primary, a declaration in front of the election judges is made. Certain states that use the format may print a single ballot
3.
Recall election
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A recall election is a procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before their term has ended. Recalls, which are initiated when sufficient voters sign a petition, have a history dating back to the ancient Athenian democracy and are a feature of several contemporary constitutions, in indirect or representative democracy peoples representatives are elected and these representatives rule for a specific period of time. But if any representative is not properly discharging their responsibilities, then they can be called back with the written request of specific number of voters, the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia enacted representative recall in 1995. In that province, voters in a provincial riding can petition to have their representative in parliament removed from office, by January 2003,22 recall efforts had been launched. No one has been recalled so far, but one representative, Paul Reitsma, Reitsma resigned during the secondary verification stage and the recall count ended. While recalls are not provided for at the level in Switzerland, six cantons allow them, Bern. 30,000 signatures are required to trigger a recall referendum, there has been one unsuccessful attempt to recall the executive in 1852. Schaffhausen, Recall of the executive and legislative is possible since 1876,1,000 signatures are required to trigger a recall referendum. There has been one attempt to recall the executive in 2000 triggered by the lawyer. Solothurn, Recall of the executive and legislative is possible since 1869,6,000 signatures are required to trigger a recall referendum. There has been one attempt to recall the executive and legislative in 1995. Three further attempts failed to collect the number of signatures. Ticino, Recall of the executive is possible since 1892,15,000 signatures are required to trigger a recall referendum. There has been one unsuccessful attempt in 1942. In addition, recall of municipal executives is possible since 2011, signatures of 30% of all adult citizens are required to trigger a recall referendum. Thurgau, Recall of the executive and legislative is possible since 1869,20,000 signatures are required to trigger a recall referendum. There have been no recall attempts, uri, Recall of the executive and legislative is possible since 1888. Since 1979600 signatures are required to trigger a recall referendum, in addition, recall of municipal executives and legislatives is possible since 2011
4.
Gerrymandering
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In the process of setting electoral districts, gerrymandering is a practice intended to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries. The resulting district is known as a gerrymander, however, that word can refer to the process. The term gerrymandering has negative connotations, two principal tactics are used in gerrymandering, cracking and packing. S. Federal voting district boundaries that produce a majority of constituents representative of African-American or other racial minorities, Gerrymandering can also be used to protect incumbents. Gerrymandering should not be confused with malapportionment, whereby the number of voters per elected representative can vary widely without relation to how the boundaries are drawn. Nevertheless, the suffix has been applied to particular malapportionments. Sometimes political representatives use both gerrymandering and malapportionment to try to maintain power, the word gerrymander was used for the first time in the Boston Gazette on 26 March 1812. The word was created in reaction to a redrawing of Massachusetts state senate election districts under Governor Elbridge Gerry, in 1812, Governor Gerry signed a bill that redistricted Massachusetts to benefit his Democratic-Republican Party. When mapped, one of the districts in the Boston area was said to resemble the shape of a mythological salamander. The original gerrymander, and original 1812 gerrymander cartoon, depict the Essex South state senatorial district for the legislature of The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, gerrymander is a portmanteau of the governors last name and the word salamander. The redistricting was a notable success, the author of the term gerrymander may never be definitively established. This cartoon was most likely drawn by Elkanah Tisdale, an early 19th-century painter, designer, Tisdale had the engraving skills to cut the woodblocks to print the original cartoon. These woodblocks survive and are preserved in the Library of Congress, the word gerrymander was reprinted numerous times in Federalist newspapers in Massachusetts, New England, and nationwide during the remainder of 1812. This suggests some organized activity of the Federalists to disparage Governor Gerry in particular, Gerrymandering soon began to be used to describe not only the original Massachusetts example, but also other cases of district shape manipulation for partisan gain in other states. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the acceptance was marked by its publication in a dictionary. Since the letter g of the eponymous Gerry is pronounced /ɡ/ as in go, however, pronunciation as /ˈdʒɛrimændər/, with a /dʒ/ as in gentle, has become the accepted pronunciation. From time to time, other names are given the suffix to tie a particular effort to a particular politician or group. These include the 1852 Henry-mandering, Jerrymander, Perrymander, and Tullymander, Gerrymandering is used most often in favor of ruling incumbents or a specific political party—the one drawing the map
5.
Cash For Vote
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The 2015 cash-for-votes scam was a South Indian political scandal, the second scandal of its kind since the 2008 North Indian cash-for-votes scandal. The Telugu Desam MLA Revanth Reddy was arrested by the Telangana Police when he was offering Rs.50 lakhs to the nominated MLA Elvis Stephenson, Reddy was then presented before the court of justice and sent to jail. Similarly, the conversation, which was quoted as the voice of N. Chandrababu Naidu. The elections for the Council of Telangana Assembly were initiated and the notification for six upper house seats were released, five candidates from TRS, one from Congress and one from Telugu Desam got ready to contest the elections. The Telugu Desam and allied BJP together does not have enough votes to win the contest, then the news came out that they were trying to get votes from other parties. The Party President Chandrababu Naidu conducted meetings to analyze this matter, the rival parties have sensed that they are attempting to lure their MLA’s, so the respective party leaders became cautious. In this process a high drama took place at Stephenson’s place, the TDP MLA Revanth Reddy met Stephenson with the help of an aide. Following Revanth’s suggestion this aide tried to deliver Rs.50 lakh currency bundles, the videos of Revanth Reddy during this transaction turned out to be critical and aired on TV News channels. The video recording shows that Revanth Reddy spoke several matters with Stephenson and he mentioned that he is the active leader in Telangana and also said that his ‘Boss’ assigns crucial matters only to him. He assured that everything will be taken care by Boss, and mentioned that he reported about money matter. He stressed that everything is based on Boss instruction. Authorities arrested Revanth Reddy and later the video was telecasted in media, everyone understood that when a Party MLA refers someone as ‘Boss’ repeatedly, it may be none otherthan the Party President Chandrababu Naidu. As per the arguments of nominated MLA Stephenson, it is coming to know that Chandrababu was the one who doctored the entire episode, the sequential events began on May 28 when one by name Mattaiah met Stephenson. This Mattaiah tried to cash in regard to MLC elections. But, Stephenson approached ACB authorities believing that it is unethical, later Sebastian, another person from TDP and after him Revanth Reddy entered the course of events. On May 30 Sebastian along with Revanth Reddy went straight to Stephenson’s residence to negotiate the deal, the duo told him that a secret meeting with Chandrababu will be arranged. The same day evening they made him speak to Chandrababu over phone, Chandrababu assured him that he will take care of everything and mentioned that his persons informed him about the deal. He then assured him that the promises will be honored, the next day i. e. on May 31 Revanth Reddy along with his aides met Stephenson with cash
6.
Initiative
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In political science, an initiative is a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote. The initiative may take the form of an initiative or an indirect initiative. In a direct initiative, a measure is put directly to a vote after being submitted by a petition, in an indirect initiative, a measure is first referred to the legislature, and then put to a popular vote only if not enacted by the legislature. It is a form of direct democracy, the Canadian province of British Columbia has a citizen initiative law known as the Recall and Initiative Act. The original proposal was put to voters in a referendum held in October 1991 and was supported by over 83% of voters and it was subsequently put into force by the incoming NDP government. The first referendum was held under this legislation on September 2011 on the subject of repealing the Harmonized Sales Tax, details of its use in BC are available on the Elections BC website. The rejected Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe included an indirect initiative right. The precise mechanism had not been agreed upon, critics underlined the weakness of this right of initiative, which did not ultimately entail any vote or referendum. A similar scheme under the name, European Citizens Initiative, has been put forward in the now ratified European Lisbon Treaty. It follows very similar rules to the ones outlined in the European Constitution and these citizens would thereby obtain the same right to request the Commission to submit a legislative proposal as the Council has had since the establishment of the European Communities in 1957. This, however, does require that the signatures come from a significant number of Member States and it is suggested that this significant number will need to be around a quarter of member states, with at least 1/500 of the citizens in those member states supporting the initiative. With the variety of languages within the European Union, this creates a significant hurdle for people to navigate. In 2013 the subjects of ongoing open initiatives of the European Citizens Initiative are e. g. about water and sanitation as a human right, unconditional Basic Income, or to End Ecocide in Europe. It remains to be if the ECI evolves into a full initiative or remains in its present state of a de facto petition. Since March 1,2012, groups of at least 50,000 Finnish citizens with suffrage have had the right to send a citizens initiative to the Parliament of Finland. A limited, indirect form of initiative was added to the French Constitution on 28 March 2003 as part of decentralization reforms. However, the only power these local referendum initiatives confer on citizens is the ability to add propositions to their local assemblys meeting agenda, the decision as to whether to submit citizen propositions to a popular vote rests with the local assembly. All German states have the right to initiative, however, there is no constitutional citizens initiative in Germany at a federal level
7.
Secret ballot
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The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voters choices in an election or a referendum are anonymous, forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation and potential vote buying. The system is one means of achieving the goal of political privacy, Secret ballots are used in conjunction with many different voting systems. The most basic form of secret ballot uses blank pieces of paper, without revealing the votes to anyone, the voter would fold the ballot paper and place it in a sealed box, which is emptied later for counting. An aspect of secret voting is the provision of a booth to enable the voter to write on the ballot paper without others being able to see what is being written. Today, printed ballot papers are provided, with the names of the candidates or questions. Provisions are made at the place for the voters to record their preferences in secret. The ballots are designed to eliminate bias and to prevent anyone from linking voter to ballot, a problem of privacy arises with moves to improve efficiency of voting by the introduction of postal voting and electronic voting. Some countries permit proxy voting, which some argue is inconsistent with voting privacy, in ancient Greece, secret ballots were used in several situations, like ostracism, and also to remain hidden from people seeking favors. In ancient Rome, the laws regulating elections were known as Tabellariae Leges. Today the practice of casting secret ballots is so commonplace that most voters would not consider any other method might be used. Other methods which had used and which are still used in some places. Other public voting methods include raising a hand to indicate a vote, article 31 of the Constitution of the Year III of the revolution states that All elections are to be held by secret ballot. The same goes with the constitution of 1848, voters could hand-write the name of their candidate on their ballot at home or receive one in a distribution in the street. The ballot is folded in order to prevent other people from reading its content, louis-Napoléon Bonaparte attempted to abolish the secret ballot for the 1851 plebiscite with an electoral decree requesting electors to write down yes or no under the eyes of everyone. But he faced an opposition and finally changed his mind. According to the web site of the Assemblée nationale, the voting booth was permanently adopted only in 1913. The demand for a ballot was one of the six points of Chartism. The London School Board election of 1870 was the first large-scale election by secret ballot in Britain, the original ballot box, sealed in wax with a liquorice stamp, is held at Pontefract museum
8.
Suffrage
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Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise is the right to vote in public, political elections. The right to run for office is sometimes called candidate eligibility, in many languages, the right to vote is called the active right to vote and the right to run for office is called the passive right to vote. In English, these are called active suffrage and passive suffrage. Suffrage is often conceived in terms of elections for representatives, however, suffrage applies equally to referenda and initiatives. Suffrage describes not only the right to vote, but also the practical question of whether a question will be put to a vote. The utility of suffrage is reduced when important questions are decided unilaterally by elected or non-elected representatives, in most democracies, eligible voters can vote in elections of representatives. Voting on issues by referendum may also be available, for example, in Switzerland this is permitted at all levels of government. The United States federal government does not offer any initiatives at all, Suffrage is granted to qualifying citizens once they have reached the voting age. What constitutes a qualifying citizen depends on the governments decision, resident non-citizens can vote in some countries, which may be restricted to citizens of closely linked countries. The word suffrage comes from Latin suffragium, meaning vote, political support, and the right to vote. The etymology of the Latin word is uncertain, with sources citing Latin suffragari lend support, vote for someone, from sub under + fragor crash, din, shouts. Other sources say that attempts to connect suffragium with fragor cannot be taken seriously, some etymologists think the word may be related to suffrago and may have originally meant an ankle bone or knuckle bone. Universal suffrage consists of the right to vote without restriction due to sex, race, social status, education level, or wealth. It typically does not extend the right to vote to all residents of a region, distinctions are made in regard to citizenship, age. The short-lived Corsican Republic was the first country to grant limited universal suffrage to all citizens over the age of 25 and this was followed by other experiments in the Paris Commune of 1871 and the island republic of Franceville. The 1840 constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii granted universal suffrage to all male and female adults, so Finland was the first country in the world to give all citizens full suffrage, in other words the right to vote and to run for office. New Zealand was the first country in the world to grant all citizens the right to vote, Womens suffrage is, by definition, the right of women to vote. This was the goal of the suffragists in the United States, short-lived suffrage equity was drafted into provisions of the State of New Jerseys first,1776 Constitution, which extended the Right to Vote to unwed female landholders & black land owners
9.
Two-round system
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The two-round system is a voting method used to elect a single winner, where the voter casts a single vote for their chosen candidate. The two-round system is used around the world for the election of legislative bodies, for example, it is used in French presidential, legislative, and departmental elections. In Italy, it is used to elect mayors, but also to decide which party or coalition receives a majority bonus in city councils. Historically it was used in the German Empire of 1871–1918, in New Zealand in the 1908 and 1911 elections, the two-round system is known as run-off voting in the United States, where the second round is known as a run-off election. Run-off voting is sometimes used as a generic term to describe any method involving a number of rounds of voting. By this broader definition the system is not the only form of run-off voting. However the subject of article is the two-round system. In Canada, for example, candidates for party leadership. It is like a method, except the one candidate must win a simple majority. Candidates with the fewest votes or candidates who want to move their support to other candidates may move to remove themselves from the next vote. In both rounds of an election conducted using runoff voting, the voter marks a X beside his/her favorite candidate. If no candidate has a majority of votes in the first round. In the second round, because there are two candidates, one candidate will achieve an absolute majority. In the second round, each voter is free to change the candidate he votes for, even if his preferred candidate has not yet been eliminated. Some variants of the system use a different rule for choosing candidates for the second round. Under such methods, it is sufficient for a candidate to receive a plurality of votes to be elected in the second round. Under some variants of runoff voting, there is no rule for eliminating candidates. In both elections, the communist candidate, Ernst Thälmann, did not withdraw and ran in the second round, in 1925, that probably ensured the election of Paul von Hindenburg, rather than Wilhelm Marx, the centrist candidate
10.
Political party
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A political party is a group of people who come together to contest elections and hold power in the government. The party agrees on some proposed policies and programmes, with a view to promoting the good or furthering their supporters interests. While there is some international commonality in the way political parties are recognized, and in how they operate, there are many differences. Many political parties have a core, but some do not. In many democracies, political parties are elected by the electorate to run a government, many countries, such as Germany and India, have several significant political parties, and some nations have one-party systems, such as China and Cuba. The United States is in practice a two-party system, but with smaller parties also participating. Its two most important parties are the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, the first political factions, cohering around a basic, if fluid, set of principles, emerged from the Exclusion Crisis and Glorious Revolution in late 17th century England. The leader of the Whigs was Robert Walpole, who maintained control of the government in the period 1721–1742, as the century wore on, the factions slowly began to adopt more coherent political tendencies as the interests of their power bases began to diverge. The Whig partys initial base of support from the aristocratic families widened to include the emerging industrial interests. A major influence on the Whigs were the political ideas of John Locke. They acted as a united, though unavailing, opposition to Whig corruption and they finally regained power with the accession of George III in 1760 under Lord Bute. Out of this chaos, the first distinctive parties emerged, the first such party was the Rockingham Whigs under the leadership of Charles Watson-Wentworth and the intellectual guidance of the political philosopher Edmund Burke. A coalition including the Rockingham Whigs, led by the Earl of Shelburne, took power in 1782, the new government, led by the radical politician Charles James Fox in coalition with Lord North, was soon brought down and replaced by William Pitt the Younger in 1783. It was now that a genuine two-party system began to emerge, by the time of this split the Whig party was increasingly influenced by the ideas of Adam Smith, founder of classical liberalism. As Wilson and Reill note, Adam Smiths theory melded nicely with the political stance of the Whig Party. The modern Conservative Party was created out of the Pittite Tories of the early 19th century, in the late 1820s disputes over political reform broke up this grouping. A government led by the Duke of Wellington collapsed amidst dire election results, following this disaster Robert Peel set about assembling a new coalition of forces. However, a consensus reached on these issues ended party politics in 1816 for a decade, Party politics revived in 1829 with the split of the Democratic-Republican Party into the Jacksonian Democrats led by Andrew Jackson, and the Whig Party, led by Henry Clay
11.
Voting
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Voting is a method for a group such as a meeting or an electorate to make a decision or express an opinion, usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holders of high office by voting, residents of a place represented by an elected official are called constituents, and those constituents who cast a ballot for their chosen candidate are called voters. In a democracy, a government is chosen by voting in an election, in a representative democracy voting is the method by which the electorate appoints its representatives in its government. In a direct democracy, voting is the method by which the electorate directly make decisions, turn bills into laws, a secret ballot has come to be the practice to prevent voters from being intimidated and to protect their political privacy. Voting usually takes place at a station, it is voluntary in some countries, compulsory in others. Different voting systems use different types of votes, a Plurality voting system does not require the winner to achieve a vote majority, or more than fifty percent of the total votes cast. In a voting system uses a single vote per race. A side effect of a vote per race is vote splitting, which tends to elect candidates that do not support centrism. An alternative to a system is approval voting. To understand why a vote per race tends to favor less centric candidates. If five marbles are assigned names and are placed up for election, the reason is that the three green marbles will split the votes of those who prefer green. In fact, in analogy, the only way that a green marble is likely to win is if more than sixty percent of the voters prefer green. If the experiment is repeated with other colors, the color that is in the majority will still rarely win, in other words, from a purely mathematical perspective, a single-vote system tends to favor a winner that is different from the majority. A development on the single system is to have two-round elections. The winner must receive a majority, which is more than half, 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. An alternative to the Two-round voting system is the single round instant-runoff voting system as used in elections in Australia, Ireland. Voters rank each candidate in order of preference, votes are distributed to each candidate according to the preferences allocated. If no single candidate has 50% or more votes than the candidate with the least votes is excluded, the process repeating itself until a candidate has 50% or more votes
12.
Electoral system
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Common electoral systems are majority rule, proportional representation and plurality voting, with a number of variations and methods such as first-past-the-post and preferential voting. The study of formally defined voting methods is called social choice theory or voting theory, depending on the meaning chosen, the common majority rule systems can produce results that the majority does not support. If every election had two choices, the winner would be determined using majority rule alone. However, when there are more than two options, there may not be an option that is most liked or most disliked by a majority. A simple choice does not allow voters to express the ordering or the intensity of their feeling, different voting systems may give very different results, particularly in cases where there is no clear majority preference. An electoral system specifies the form of the ballot, the set of votes, and the tallying method. This outcome may be a winner, as in the case of a presidential election, or may result in multiple winners. The electoral system may specify how voting power is distributed among the voters. The real-world implementation of an election is not considered part of the electoral system. An electoral system also does not specify whether or how votes are kept secret, how to verify that votes are counted accurately and these are aspects of the broader topic of elections and election systems. Different electoral systems have different ways of allowing individuals to express their votes, in ranked ballot or preference electoral systems, such as Instant-runoff voting, the Borda count, or a Condorcet method, each voter orders the list of options from most to least preferred. In range voting, voters rate each option separately on a scale, in plurality voting, voters select only one option, while in approval voting, they can select as many as they want. In electoral systems that allow plumping, like voting, voters may vote for the same candidate multiple times. Some electoral systems include additional choices on the ballot, such as write-in candidates, some systems call for a primary election first to determine which candidates will be on the ballot. Many elections are based on the principle of one person, one vote and this is not true of all elections, however. Corporate elections, for instance, usually weight votes according to the amount of each voter holds in the company, changing the mechanism to one share. Votes can also be weighted unequally for other reasons, such as increasing the weight of higher-ranked members of an organization. Voting weight is not the thing as voting power
13.
Electoral fraud
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Electoral fraud, election manipulation, or vote rigging is illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about a result, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates. What constitutes electoral fraud under law varies from country to country, many kinds of election fraud are outlawed in electoral legislation, but others are in violation of general laws, such as those banning assault, harassment or libel. Show elections, in only one candidate can win, are sometimes classified as electoral fraud. In national elections, successful electoral fraud can have the effect of a coup détat or corruption of democracy, in a narrow election, a small amount of fraud may be enough to change the result. Even if the outcome is not affected, revelation of fraud can have an effect, if not punished. A list of threats to voting systems, or electoral fraud methods considered as sabotage, is kept by the National Institute of Standards, Electoral fraud can occur in advance of voting if the composition of the electorate is altered. The legality of this type of manipulation varies across jurisdictions, deliberate manipulation of election outcomes is widely considered a violation of the principles of democracy. In many cases it is possible for authorities to control the composition of an electorate in order to produce a foregone result. One way of doing this is to move a number of voters into the electorate prior to an election. Many countries prevent this with rules stipulating that a voter must have lived in a district for a minimum period in order to be eligible to vote there. However, such laws can also be used for demographic manipulation as they tend to disenfranchise those with no fixed address, such as the homeless, travelers, Roma, students, another strategy is to permanently move people into an electoral district, usually through public housing. One notable example of this occurred in the City of Westminster in England under Shirley Porter, immigration law may also be used to manipulate electoral demography. A method of manipulating primary contests and other elections of party leaders is related to this, people who support one party may temporarily join another party in order to elect a weak candidate for that partys leadership. The goal ultimately is defeat of the candidate in the general election by the leader of the party that the voter truly supports. The composition of an electorate may also be altered by disenfranchising some classes of people, from the turn of the century into the late 1960s, most African Americans in the southern states of the former Confederacy were disenfranchised by such measures. Compared to most European nations, many states in the US have much more severe laws that prevent convicted felons who have served their sentences from ever voting again, groups may also be disenfranchised by rules which make it impractical or impossible for them to cast a vote. Communities may also be effectively disenfranchised if polling places are situated in areas perceived by voters as unsafe, in some cases voters may be invalidly disenfranchised, which is true electoral fraud
14.
Referendums by country
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A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This article summarises referendum legislature and practice in various countries, on 19 March 2011 a constitutional referendum was held in Egypt, following the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. The reforms made it easier for candidates to run for president, in April 1993 nearly 1 million voters in Eritrea, cast ballots to become sovereign and independent of Ethiopia. This vote was the result of thirty years of war by Eritreans during their War of Independence, the result was a vote for independence by 99. 8% of the voters. There have been several referendums in Morocco, most of which were related to the Moroccan constitution, since becoming King, King Mohammed VI has led many reforms that made Morocco an exception from all the other Arab countries. On February 20,2011, thousands took to the streets of Rabat, Casablanca, Tangier and Marrakesh in peaceful protests demanding a new constitution, a change in government and an end to corruption. During a march on Hassan II Avenue in Rabat, demonstrators demanded a new constitution to bring democracy to the country. They shouted slogans calling for economic opportunity, education reform, better health services, on March 9, King Mohammed VI made a speech that was described as a historical speech in which he announced several reforms including a new constitution to the country. In a televised speech on Friday,17 June, King Mohammed VI announced a series of constitutional reforms, the proposed reforms would give the prime minister and the parliament more executive authority, and would make Berber an official language in Morocco, together with Arabic. The proposal would empower the prime minister with the authority to appoint government officials, a new constitutional provision would also confirm the kings role as the highest religious authority in the country. On 29 June 2011, the called for a boycott of the referendum. The referendum was held on June 1, and almost all Moroccans said yes to it with a 98% yes 2% No turnout, a constitutional referendum was held in Bangladesh on 15 September 1991. Voters were asked Should or not the President assent to the Constitution Bill,1991 of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, the amendments would lead to the reintroduction of parliamentary government, with the President becoming the constitutional head of state, but the Prime Minister the executive head. It also abolished the position of Vice-President and would see the President elected by Parliament, the result saw 83. 6% vote in favour, with a turnout of 35. 2%. East Timor, formerly governed by Indonesia, held a referendum on 30 August 1999, in which voters chose either to become a Special Autonomous Region within Indonesia, around 79% of voters opted for independence. This is often called a de facto referendum, the original five pan-democrat Legislative Councillors were re-elected, the turnout was much lower than the expectation of the two parties, due to the suppression of pro-Beijing Camp. Indonesian Constitution does not mention referendums at all, and as such, in 1985, the Peoples Consultative Assembly issued Law no. 5/1985 that officially recognized referendum as a political process in Indonesia
15.
Vote
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Voting is a method for a group such as a meeting or an electorate to make a decision or express an opinion, usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holders of high office by voting, residents of a place represented by an elected official are called constituents, and those constituents who cast a ballot for their chosen candidate are called voters. In a democracy, a government is chosen by voting in an election, in a representative democracy voting is the method by which the electorate appoints its representatives in its government. In a direct democracy, voting is the method by which the electorate directly make decisions, turn bills into laws, a secret ballot has come to be the practice to prevent voters from being intimidated and to protect their political privacy. Voting usually takes place at a station, it is voluntary in some countries, compulsory in others. Different voting systems use different types of votes, a Plurality voting system does not require the winner to achieve a vote majority, or more than fifty percent of the total votes cast. In a voting system uses a single vote per race. A side effect of a vote per race is vote splitting, which tends to elect candidates that do not support centrism. An alternative to a system is approval voting. To understand why a vote per race tends to favor less centric candidates. If five marbles are assigned names and are placed up for election, the reason is that the three green marbles will split the votes of those who prefer green. In fact, in analogy, the only way that a green marble is likely to win is if more than sixty percent of the voters prefer green. If the experiment is repeated with other colors, the color that is in the majority will still rarely win, in other words, from a purely mathematical perspective, a single-vote system tends to favor a winner that is different from the majority. A development on the single system is to have two-round elections. The winner must receive a majority, which is more than half, 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. An alternative to the Two-round voting system is the single round instant-runoff voting system as used in elections in Australia, Ireland. Voters rank each candidate in order of preference, votes are distributed to each candidate according to the preferences allocated. If no single candidate has 50% or more votes than the candidate with the least votes is excluded, the process repeating itself until a candidate has 50% or more votes
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Constituency
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An electoral district is a territorial subdivision for electing members to a legislative body. Generally, only voters who reside within the district are permitted to vote in an election held there, from a single district, a single member or multiple members might be chosen. Members might be chosen by a first-past-the-post system or a representative system. Members might be chosen through an election under universal suffrage. The names for electoral districts vary across countries and, occasionally, the term constituency is commonly used to refer to an electoral district, it can also refer to the body of eligible voters within the represented area. Similarly, in Australia and New Zealand, electoral districts are called electorates, the term Chûnāô-Kshetra is used while referring to an electoral district in general irrespective of the legislature. When referring to a particular constituency, it is simply referred to as Kshetra along with the name of the legislature. Electoral districts for municipal or other bodies are called wards. In Canada, districts are colloquially called ridings, in French, circonscription or comté, local electoral districts are sometimes called wards, a term which also designates administrative subdivisions of a municipality. In local government in the Republic of Ireland voting districts are called electoral areas, district magnitude is the number of representatives elected from a given district to the same legislative body. A single-member district has one representative, while a district has more than one. Under proportional representation systems, district magnitude is an important determinant of the makeup of the elected body, the geographic distribution of minorities also affects their representation - an unpopular nationwide minority can still secure a seat if they are concentrated in a particular district. District magnitude can vary within the same system during an election. In the Republic of Ireland, for instance, national elections to Dáil Éireann are held using a combination of 3,4, main articles, Apportionment and Redistricting Apportionment is the process of allocating a number of representatives to different regions, such as states or provinces. Apportionment changes are accompanied by redistricting, the redrawing of electoral district boundaries to accommodate the new number of representatives. This redrawing is necessary under single-member district systems, as each new representative requires their own district, multi-member systems, however, vary depending on other rules. Apportionment is generally done on the basis of population, the United States Senate, by contrast, is apportioned without regard to population, every state gets exactly two senators. Malapportionment occurs when voters are under- or over-represented due to variation in district population, given the complexity of this process, software is increasingly used to simplify the task, while better supporting reproducible and more justifiable results
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Latin language
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
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Preposition
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Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions, are a class of words that express spatial or temporal relations or mark various semantic roles. A preposition or postposition typically combines with a noun or pronoun, or more generally a noun phrase, a preposition comes before its complement, a postposition comes after its complement. Some languages, which use a different word order, have postpositions instead, the phrase formed by a preposition or postposition together with its complement is called a prepositional phrase – such phrases usually play an adverbial role in a sentence. A less common type of adposition is the circumposition, which consists of two parts that appear on side of the complement. Other terms sometimes used for types of adposition include ambiposition, inposition and interposition. Some linguists use the preposition in place of adposition regardless of the applicable word order. The word preposition comes from Latin, prae and Latin, ponere and this refers to the situation in Latin and Greek, where such words are placed before their complement, and are hence pre-positioned. In some languages, including Sindhi, Urdu, Turkish, Hindi, Korean, and Japanese, to indicate this, they are called postpositions. There are also cases where the function is performed by two parts coming before and after the complement, this is called a circumposition. Prepositions, postpositions and circumpositions are collectively known as adpositions, however, some linguists prefer to use the well-known and longer established term preposition in place of adposition, irrespective of position relative to the complement. An adposition typically combines with exactly one complement, most often a noun phrase, in English, this is generally a noun, together with its specifier and modifiers such as articles, adjectives, etc. The complement is called the object of the adposition. The resulting phrase, formed by the adposition together with its complement, is called a phrase or prepositional phrase. An adposition establishes a relationship that links its complement to another word or phrase in the context. It also generally establishes a relationship, which may be spatial, temporal. Some examples of the use of English prepositions are given below, in each case, the prepositional phrase appears in italics, and the preposition within it appears in bold. The word to which the phrase expresses a relation – that is, in some of the examples, the same word has two prepositional phrases as adjuncts. As an adjunct to a noun, the weather in March cheese from France with live bacteria As a predicative expression The key is under the stone, prepositional phrases themselves are sometimes nominalized, In the cellar was chosen as the best place to hide the bodies
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Adjective
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In linguistics, an adjective is a describing word, the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified. Adjectives are one of the English parts of speech, although historically they were classed together with the nouns, certain words that were traditionally considered to be adjectives, including the, this, my, etc. are today usually classed separately, as determiners. Adjective comes from Latin adjectīvum additional, a calque of Ancient Greek, in the grammatical tradition of Latin and Greek, because adjectives were inflected for gender, number, and case like nouns, they were considered a subtype of noun. The words that are typically called nouns were then called substantive nouns. The terms noun substantive and noun adjective were formerly used in English, in English, attributive adjectives usually precede their nouns in simple phrases, but often follow their nouns when the adjective is modified or qualified by a phrase acting as an adverb. For example, I saw three kids, and I saw three kids happy enough to jump up and down with glee. Predicative adjectives are linked via a copula or other linking mechanism to the noun or pronoun they modify, for example, happy is an adjective in they are happy. Nominal adjectives act almost as nouns, One way this can happen is if a noun is elided and an attributive adjective is left behind. In the sentence, I read two books to them, he preferred the sad book, but she preferred the happy, happy is a nominal adjective, short for happy one or happy book. Another way this can happen is in phrases like out with the old, in with the new, where the old means, that which is old or all that is old, and similarly with the new. In such cases, the adjective functions either as a noun or as a plural count noun, as in The meek shall inherit the Earth. Adjectives feature as a part of speech in most languages, in some languages, the words that serve the semantic function of adjectives may be categorized together with some other class, such as nouns or verbs. Such an analysis is possible for the grammar of Standard Chinese, different languages do not always use adjectives in exactly the same situations. For example, where English uses to be hungry, Dutch and French use honger hebben, similarly, where Hebrew uses the adjective זקוק zaqūq, English uses the verb to need. In languages which have adjectives as a class, they are usually an open class. However, Bantu languages are known for having only a small closed class of adjectives. Many languages, including English, distinguish between adjectives, which qualify nouns and pronouns, and adverbs, which mainly modify verbs, adjectives, not all languages have exactly this distinction and many languages, including English, have words that can function as both. For example, in English fast is an adjective in a fast car, in Dutch and German, adjectives and adverbs are usually identical in form and many grammarians do not make the distinction, but patterns of inflection can suggest a difference, Eine kluge neue Idee
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Noun
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A noun is a word that functions as the name of some specific thing or set of things, such as living creatures, objects, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas. Linguistically, a noun is a member of a large, open part of whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause. Lexical categories are defined in terms of the ways in which their members combine with other kinds of expressions, the syntactic rules for nouns differ from language to language. In English, nouns are words which can occur with articles and attributive adjectives. Word classes were described by Sanskrit grammarians from at least the 5th century BC, in Yāskas Nirukta, the noun is one of the four main categories of words defined. The Ancient Greek equivalent was ónoma, referred to by Plato in the Cratylus dialog, the term used in Latin grammar was nōmen. All of these terms for noun were also words meaning name, the English word noun is derived from the Latin term, through the Anglo-Norman noun. The word classes were defined partly by the forms that they take. In Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, for example, nouns are categorized by gender and inflected for case, because adjectives share these three grammatical categories, adjectives are placed in the same class as nouns. Similarly, the Latin nōmen includes both nouns and adjectives, as originally did the English word noun, the two types being distinguished as nouns substantive and nouns adjective, many European languages use a cognate of the word substantive as the basic term for noun. Nouns in the dictionaries of languages are demarked by the abbreviation s. or sb. instead of n. which may be used for proper nouns or neuter nouns instead. In English, some authors use the word substantive to refer to a class that includes both nouns and noun phrases. It can also be used as a counterpart to attributive when distinguishing between a noun being used as the head of a phrase and a noun being used as a noun adjunct. For example, the knee can be said to be used substantively in my knee hurts. Nouns have sometimes been defined in terms of the categories to which they are subject. Such definitions tend to be language-specific, since nouns do not have the categories in all languages. Nouns are frequently defined, particularly in contexts, in terms of their semantic properties. Nouns are described as words that refer to a person, place, thing, event, substance, quality, quantity, however this type of definition has been criticized by contemporary linguists as being uninformative
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Oxford English Dictionary
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The Oxford English Dictionary is a descriptive dictionary of the English language, published by the Oxford University Press. The second edition came to 21,728 pages in 20 volumes, in 1895, the title The Oxford English Dictionary was first used unofficially on the covers of the series, and in 1928 the full dictionary was republished in ten bound volumes. In 1933, the title The Oxford English Dictionary fully replaced the name in all occurrences in its reprinting as twelve volumes with a one-volume supplement. More supplements came over the years until 1989, when the edition was published. Since 2000, an edition of the dictionary has been underway. The first electronic version of the dictionary was available in 1988. The online version has been available since 2000, and as of April 2014 was receiving two million hits per month. The third edition of the dictionary will probably appear in electronic form, Nigel Portwood, chief executive of Oxford University Press. As a historical dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary explains words by showing their development rather than merely their present-day usages, therefore, it shows definitions in the order that the sense of the word began being used, including word meanings which are no longer used. The format of the OEDs entries has influenced numerous other historical lexicography projects and this influenced later volumes of this and other lexicographical works. As of 30 November 2005, the Oxford English Dictionary contained approximately 301,100 main entries, the dictionarys latest, complete print edition was printed in 20 volumes, comprising 291,500 entries in 21,730 pages. The longest entry in the OED2 was for the verb set, as entries began to be revised for the OED3 in sequence starting from M, the longest entry became make in 2000, then put in 2007, then run in 2011. Despite its impressive size, the OED is neither the worlds largest nor the earliest exhaustive dictionary of a language, the Dutch dictionary Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal is the worlds largest dictionary, has similar aims to the OED and took twice as long to complete. Another earlier large dictionary is the Grimm brothers dictionary of the German language, begun in 1838, the official dictionary of Spanish is the Diccionario de la lengua española, and its first edition was published in 1780. The Kangxi dictionary of Chinese was published in 1716, trench suggested that a new, truly comprehensive dictionary was needed. On 7 January 1858, the Society formally adopted the idea of a new dictionary. Volunteer readers would be assigned particular books, copying passages illustrating word usage onto quotation slips, later the same year, the Society agreed to the project in principle, with the title A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. He withdrew and Herbert Coleridge became the first editor, on 12 May 1860, Coleridges dictionary plan was published and research was started
22.
Memorandum
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A memorandum is a note, document or other communication that helps the memory by recording events or observations on a topic, such as may be used in a business office. A memorandum can have only a number of formats, it may have a format specific to an office or institution. In law specifically, a memorandum is a record of the terms of a transaction or contract, such as a memo, memorandum of understanding, memorandum of agreement. Alternative formats include memos, briefing notes, reports, letters or binders and they could be one page long or many. They may be considered as grey literature, if the user is a cabinet minister or a senior executive, the format might be rigidly defined and limited to one or two pages. If the user is a colleague, the format is much more flexible. At its most basic level, a memorandum can be a note to ones supervisor. In business, a memo is typically used by firms for internal communication, hence, we can consider memoranda as an upward communication process through which any complaint, issues, opinion, views and suggestion are put forward to the authorized level. A specific type of memorandum is the briefing note, a document for transmitting policy analysis into the political decision making sphere. Typically, a note may be denoted as either “for information” or “for decision”. The origins of the term “briefing” lie in legal “briefs” and the derivative “military briefings”, policy documents that start with a proposal and assemble an argument that position are more accurately referred to as a government white paper. A government green paper which raises a policy option and is meant to open a dialogue on the proposal is similar in tone to a briefing note than is a white paper. ”Next to a nose, and a logical brain, the most important skill of the good treasury resides in fine drafting hand. The concise, coherent and penetrating note is the expression of all other talents. ”In many Westminster / Whitehall governance settings, policy analysts are expected to analyze the issue. Washington. edu, Memorandum Writing, Patrick, Richard F. Elmore, how to Write Briefing Notes, Parkinson, Robert B. Classic Format of a Briefing Note, Parkinson, Robert B
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Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
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Plebeian Council
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The Concilium Plebis was the principal popular assembly of the ancient Roman Republic. It functioned as an assembly, through which the plebeians could pass laws, elect magistrates. The Plebeian Council was originally organized on the basis of the Curia, thus, it was originally a Plebeian Curiate Assembly. The Plebeian Council usually met in the well of the comitium, the assembly elected the Tribunes of the Plebs and the plebeian aediles, and only the plebeians were allowed to vote. When the Roman Republic was founded in 509 BC, the Roman people were divided into a total of thirty curiae, the curiae were organized on the basis of the family, and thus the ethnic structure of early Rome. Each curia even had its own festivals, gods, and religious rites, the thirty curiae gathered into a legislative assembly known as the Comitia Curiata or Curiate Assembly. This assembly was created shortly after the founding of the city in 753 BC. During this time, plebeians had no political rights, each plebeian family was dependent on a particular patrician family. Thus, each plebeian family belonged to the curia as did its patrician patron. While the plebeians each belonged to a curia, only patricians could actually vote in the Curiate Assembly. Before the first plebeian secession in 494 BC, the plebeians probably met in their own assembly on the basis of the curiae. However, this assembly probably had no role until the offices of plebeian tribune and plebeian aedile were created that year. This Plebeian Curiate Assembly was the original Plebeian Council, after 494 BC, a plebeian tribune always presided over the Plebeian Curiate Assembly. This assembly elected the plebeian tribunes and the aediles. During the later years of the Roman Kingdom, King Servius Tullius enacted a series of constitutional reforms, one of these reforms resulted in the creation of a new organizational unit, the tribe, to assist in the reorganization of the army. Its divisions were not ethnic, but rather geographical, Tullius divided the city into four geographical districts, each encompassing a single tribe. Between the reign of Tullius and the late 3rd century BC, by 471 BC, the plebeians decided that organization by tribe granted them a level of political independence from their patrician patrons that the curiae did not. Therefore, around 471 BC, a law was passed to allow the plebeians to begin organizing by tribe, thus, the Plebeian Curiate Assembly began to use tribes, rather than curiae, as its basis for organization
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Roman Republic
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It was during this period that Romes control expanded from the citys immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world. During the first two centuries of its existence, the Roman Republic expanded through a combination of conquest and alliance, by the following century, it included North Africa, most of the Iberian Peninsula, and what is now southern France. Two centuries after that, towards the end of the 1st century BC, it included the rest of modern France, Greece, and much of the eastern Mediterranean. By this time, internal tensions led to a series of wars, culminating with the assassination of Julius Caesar. The exact date of transition can be a matter of interpretation, Roman government was headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and advised by a senate composed of appointed magistrates. Over time, the laws that gave exclusive rights to Romes highest offices were repealed or weakened. The leaders of the Republic developed a tradition and morality requiring public service and patronage in peace and war, making military. Many of Romes legal and legislative structures can still be observed throughout Europe and much of the world in modern nation states, the exact causes and motivations for Romes military conflicts and expansions during the republic are subject to wide debate. While they can be seen as motivated by outright aggression and imperialism and they argue that Romes expansion was driven by short-term defensive and inter-state factors, and the new contingencies that these decisions created. In its early history, as Rome successfully defended itself against foreign threats in central and then northern Italy, with some important exceptions, successful wars in early republican Rome generally led not to annexation or military occupation, but to the restoration of the way things were. But the defeated city would be weakened and thus able to resist Romanizing influences. It was also able to defend itself against its non-Roman enemies. It was, therefore, more likely to seek an alliance of protection with Rome and this growing coalition expanded the potential enemies that Rome might face, and moved Rome closer to confrontation with major powers. The result was more alliance-seeking, on the part of both the Roman confederacy and city-states seeking membership within that confederacy. While there were exceptions to this, it was not until after the Second Punic War that these alliances started to harden into something more like an empire and this shift mainly took place in parts of the west, such as the southern Italian towns that sided with Hannibal. In contrast, Roman expansion into Spain and Gaul occurred as a mix of alliance-seeking, in the 2nd century BC, Roman involvement in the Greek east remained a matter of alliance-seeking, but this time in the face of major powers that could rival Rome. This had some important similarities to the events in Italy centuries earlier, with some major exceptions of outright military rule, the Roman Republic remained an alliance of independent city-states and kingdoms until it transitioned into the Roman Empire. It was not until the time of the Roman Empire that the entire Roman world was organized into provinces under explicit Roman control
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Direct democracy
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Direct democracy is a form of democracy in which people decide policy initiatives directly. This differs from the majority of democracies, which are representative democracies. Direct democracy is similar to, but distinct from, representative democracy, two leading forms of direct democracy are participatory democracy and deliberative democracy. Semi direct democracies in which representatives administer day-to-day governance, but the citizens remain the sovereign, the first two forms—referendums and initiatives—are examples of direct legislation. Compulsory referendum subjects the legislation drafted by political elites to a popular vote. This is the most common form of direct legislation, popular referendum empowers citizens to make a petition that calls existing legislation to a citizens vote. Institutions specify the frame for a valid petition and the number of signatures required. This form of direct democracy effectively grants the voting public a veto on laws adopted by the elected legislature, initiatives may be direct or indirect, With the direct initiative, a successful proposition is placed directly on the ballot to be subject to vote. Such a form of initiative is utilized by Switzerland for constitutional amendments. Power of Recall gives the public the power to elected officials from office before the end of their term. Some of the most important modern thinkers who were inspired by the concept of democracy are Cornelius Castoriadis, Hannah Arendt. The earliest known direct democracy is said to be the Athenian democracy in the 5th century BC, although it was not a democracy, women, foreigners. There were only about 30,000 male citizens, but several thousand of them were active in each year. Modern democracies, being representative, not direct, do not resemble the Athenian system, also relevant to the history of direct democracy is the history of Ancient Rome, specifically the Roman Republic, beginning around 509 BC. Rome displayed many aspects of democracy, both direct and indirect, from the era of Roman monarchy all the way to the collapse of the Roman Empire. As to direct democracy, the ancient Roman Republic had a system of citizen lawmaking, or citizen formulation and passage of law, and a citizen veto of legislature-made law. Many historians mark the end of the Republic with the passage of a law named the Lex Titia,27 November 43 BC, modern-era citizen lawmaking began in the towns of Switzerland in the 13th century. In 1847, the Swiss added the statute referendum to their national constitution and they soon discovered that merely having the power to veto Parliaments laws was not enough
