Elections have fascinated political scientists for a long time, and with good reason. They determine who is to take control of government. They involve a large proportion of citizens and are probably one of the best topics for research on mass political behaviour. They tell us a lot about how ordinary citizens relate to politics, what they think is important and how they make up their mind about governments and issues. On top of this, voting figures in democracies are relatively ‘hard’ and reliable, so researchers have a great deal of evidence on which to base their generalisations.

Given their importance in any democratic system of government, a great many questions can be asked about voting and elections:

• How should democratic elections be organised?

• What is the best voting system?

• What determines how many people turn out to vote?

• Should we worry about declining election turnout?

• What determines party voting?

• Have voting patterns been transformed by recent social, economic and technological change?

In this chapter, we tackle these questions. The three major topics are:

• Elections

• Party voting

• Theories of voting.