Most citizens know how elections work in their own country but not all elections are created
equally. Elections occur in all democracies and many non-democratic regimes as well. They
determine who will hold public office and who will have the power to govern. They connect
citizens to those whom they choose to make decisions on their behalf and who regulate their
behavior. This book looks comparatively at the key aspects of elections. In addition to
describing types of electoral systems it discusses the implications of the various systems for
the administration of elections voter participation representation government stability and
other factors. Where appropriate it examines efforts to reform a nation's (or a sub-national
entity's) system exploring the impetus for reform and the effects of those reforms when
implemented. Elections: A Very Short Introduction asks readers to view election systems
critically and comparatively to understand that all democracies do not function in the same
way to think about the reasons their system functions as it does-for good or ill-and to
consider alternatives with which they might not previously have been familiar. L. Sandy Maisel
and Jennifer A. Yoder lay out the variety of electoral systems in the broadest terms-
single-member district plurality systems proportional systems and mixed systems. They discuss
voting and the various electoral institutions used to implement the ways in which voting occurs
and how votes are tabulated across electoral systems. They analyze the consequences of each
system first for the functioning of the democracy and second for the electoral strategies
politicians employ closing with a discussion of reforms under consideration in a number of
countries.
