Types of Voting

Recall that voting refers to the process of selecting a candidate of one’s choice. There are different ways this process can be carried out but the most common is the casting of a vote during a general elections.

Types of Voting Systems

1. Approval Voting:

Approval voting is a voting system used for elections. In approval voting, each person can vote for any number of candidates they like. The votes for each of the candidates are counted, and summed up. The candidate or candidates with most votes are chosen as the winners of the election.

2. Proxy Voting:

Proxy voting is the type of voting where a registered citizen who is able to vote passes on his or her vote to a different voter or electorate legitimately. 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.

3. Negative Voting:

Negative voting allows a vote that expresses disapproval of a candidate. For explanatory purposes, consider a hypothetical voting system that uses negative voting. In this system, one vote is allowed, with the choice of either for a candidate, or against a candidate. Each positive vote adds one to a candidate's overall total, while a negative vote subtracts one, arriving at a net favorability. The candidate with the highest net favorability is the winner. Note that not only is a negative total possible, but also, a candidate may even be elected with 0 votes if enough negative votes are cast against their opponents.

4. Straw Vote:

A straw poll or straw vote is an ad-hoc or unofficial vote. It is used to show the popular opinion on a certain matter, and can be used to help politicians know the majority opinion and help them decide what to say in order to gain votes. Straw polls provide dialogue among movements within large groups. Impromptu straw polls often are taken to see if there is enough support for an idea to devote more meeting time to it, and (when not a secret ballot) for the attendees to see who is on which side of a question.

5. Exit Vote:

An election exit poll is a poll of voters taken immediately after they have exited the polling stations. Unlike an opinion poll, which asks for whom the voter plans to vote, or some similar formulation, an exit poll asks for whom the voter actually voted. A similar poll conducted before actual voters have voted is called an entrance poll. Pollsters – usually private companies working for newspapers or broadcasters – conduct exit polls to gain an early indication as to how an election has turned out, as in many elections the actual result may take hours or even days to count.

6. 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.

Types of Voting Methods

1. Paper-Based Voting:

The most common voting method uses paper ballots on which voters mark their preferences. This may involve marking their support for a candidate or party listed on the ballot, or a write-in, where they write out the name of their preferred candidate if it is not listed.

An alternative paper-based system known as ballot letters is used in Israel, where polling booths contain a tray with ballots for each party contesting the elections; the ballots are marked with the letter(s) assigned to that party. Voters are given an envelope into which they put the ballot of the party they wish to vote for, before placing the envelope in the ballot box.

2. Secret Voting:

A secret ballot is a type of vote where the voter's choices are anonymous. This is to make bribery or intimidation of voters more difficult. Secret ballots are good for many different voting systems. The most basic form may be blank pieces of paper. The voter writes only his or her choice, then places it into a sealed box. The box is emptied later for counting.

The French Constitution of 1795 states that "All elections are to be held by secret ballot". Britain followed later. The secret ballot was first used in Britain on 15 August 1872 in a by-election. The original ballot box, sealed in wax with a liquorice stamp, is kept at Pontefract museum.

3. Open Voting:

In Nigeria, open ballot system, also known as Option A4, is a voting method in which voters vote openly by queuing or otherwise, indicating the candidate of their choice. This is as opposed to a secret ballot, where a voter's choices are confidential. The system minimizes incidences of election rigging that comes with the secret ballot system as well as other electoral fraudulent-related practices.

The open ballot system was the norm prior to Australia adopting the secret ballot in 1856. In modern times, the open ballot was first adopted in the Third Nigerian Republic during the 1993 Nigerian presidential election, an election that was widely regarded as the freest and fairest in the country's political history.

4. Postal Voting:

Postal voting is voting in an election whereby ballot papers are distributed to electors or returned by post, in contrast to electors voting in person at a polling station or electronically via an electronic voting system. 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. Historically, postal votes must be distributed and placed in return mail before the scheduled election day, it is sometimes referred to as a form of early voting.

It can also be used as an absentee ballot. However, in recent times the model in the US has morphed, in municipalities that use postal voting exclusively, to be one of ballots being mailed out to voters, but the return method taking on alternatives of return by mail or dropping off the ballot in person via secure drop boxes and/or voting centers. Postal voting refers only to the means by which the ballots are submitted, not to the method by which the votes are counted.

5. Machine Voting:

Machine voting uses voting machines, which may be manual (e.g. lever machines) or electronic. In Brazil, voters type in the number of the candidate they wish to vote for and then confirm their vote when the candidate's photo is displayed on screen.

A voting machine is a machine used to register and tabulate votes. The first voting machines were mechanical but it is increasingly more common to use electronic voting machines. Traditionally, a voting machine has been defined by the mechanism the system uses to cast votes and further categorized by the location where the system tabulates the votes.

6. Electronic Voting:

Electronic voting (also known as e-voting) is voting that uses electronic means to either aid or take care of casting and counting votes. Depending on the particular implementation, e-voting may use standalone electronic voting machines (also called EVM) or computers connected to the Internet. It may encompass a range of Internet services, from basic transmission of tabulated results to full-function online voting through common connectable household devices.

The degree of automation may be limited to marking a paper ballot, or may be a comprehensive system of vote input, vote recording, data encryption and transmission to servers, and consolidation and tabulation of election results. In some countries people are allowed to vote online. Estonia was one of the first countries to use online voting: it was first used in the 2005 local elections.