Essential Election Season Vocabulary: Electoral Elocution: The Verbiage of Voting

Citizens choosing their leaders through regular elections is the foundation of democracy. Whether you're eligible to vote or just following the race, these terms are essential to understanding our political system.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. abstain
    refrain from voting
    Because of the strong Conservative Party presence in the House of Commons, the bill passed on its second reading -- but 27 members broke with the party whips and abstained. Fox News (Sep 15, 2020)
    You may hear vote counts described as "12 yea, 8 nay, and 2 abstain. " Sometimes a lawmaker or other official who is present and eligible to vote will decline to do so when a vote is difficult, or to make some sort of statement about the issue being voted on.
  2. ballot
    a document listing the alternatives that is used in voting
    He's also, in his usual manner, accusing his opponents of doing what he's clearly planning to do, which in this case is to keep the ballots from being accurately tallied. Salon (Sep 17, 2020)
    In thirteenth-century Italy, a ballotta was a small painted ball that would be dropped through a hole into a locked box to record a vote.
  3. booth
    small area set off by walls for special use
    There will be steady and widespread initiatives to get people registered to vote — and then into the voting booths or able to submit absentee and mail-in ballots. Seattle Times (Sep 11, 2020)
  4. campaign
    related operations aimed at achieving a particular goal
    But one area where foreign threats were addressed was in the presidential election and Russia’s attempts to interfere in the campaign. Seattle Times (Sep 17, 2020)
    Campagne means "countryside" in French, and when armies would go "in the field" to do battle that's the word that described their activities. That combative context lent itself well to politics, so that's the word we use to describe the ways candidates try to get elected.
  5. candidate
    someone who is considered for something
    The Constitutional Council, a judicial body, whittled down an initial list of 44 presidential candidates to just four this week. Reuters (Sep 17, 2020)
  6. caucus
    meet to select a candidate or promote a policy
    That’s how we got 73 percent of the Latino vote in the Nevada caucuses. Slate (Sep 17, 2020)
    Of unknown origin, caucus may come from the Virginia Algonquin cawcawwassough, a word describing the elders of the Chikahominy people.
  7. census
    a periodic count of the population
    Median incomes for white, Black, Asian and Hispanic households all increased in 2019, adjusting for inflation, the census report released Tuesday showed. New York Times (Sep 15, 2020)
  8. citizen
    a native or naturalized member of a state
    “I worry over time that they will contribute over time to a lack of confidence of American voters and citizens in the validity of their vote.” Seattle Times (Sep 17, 2020)
  9. constituent
    one of the individual parts making up a composite entity
    Abe was accused of using taxpayers’ money to entertain constituents at the annual gathering. Seattle Times (Sep 17, 2020)
  10. delegate
    a person appointed or elected to represent others
    In 1804, they called a convention with delegates from 97 towns to prepare for a constitutional convention. Salon (Sep 12, 2020)
    When you delegate a task to someone else, you entrust them to perform it without your involvement.
  11. elect
    choose by a vote for an office or membership
    “The difference is stark between profits for billionaires and the widespread economic misery in our nation. Clearly, the priorities of elected officials in Washington, DC are completely upside down.” The Guardian (Sep 17, 2020)
  12. electorate
    the body of enfranchised citizens; those qualified to vote
    The company gathered opinion-poll data from the archives of pollsters George Gallup and Elmo Roper to create a model of the US electorate. Nature (Sep 15, 2020)
  13. enfranchise
    grant voting rights
    After all, the same legislation that enfranchised white women deprived all Indigenous people of these same federal civil rights. The Guardian (Aug 26, 2020)
  14. nominee
    a politician who is running for public office
    But Trump ended up narrowly losing New Hampshire – by fewer than 3,000 votes – to 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the general election. Fox News (Sep 17, 2020)
    In Latin, nominatus means "named" or "called."
  15. precinct
    an administrative district of a city or town
    He secured 74 percent of vote to Scarane's 26 percent, with 83 percent of precincts reporting. Washington Post (Sep 14, 2020)
  16. primary
    an election to choose a candidate for the general election
    He meandered briefly to the subject of the messy Democratic primary in Iowa, then the Russia investigation before returning to the pandemic. Seattle Times (Sep 17, 2020)
    Primary means "first," so the election held before the general election where each party's nominees are chosen by voters gets that designation.
  17. recount
    enumerate again
    In the 2000 election, Mr Gore initially conceded and then retracted his concession after believing that his margin of loss in Florida should trigger a recount. BBC (Sep 16, 2020)
  18. referendum
    a legislative act referred for approval to a popular vote
    They rejected the election won by Tebboune and see the referendum on the constitution as a tactic to sideline their movement. Reuters (Sep 17, 2020)
  19. registration
    the act of registering for something
    The lawsuit alleges that the state’s agencies didn’t provide ample opportunities to register to vote or update voter registration information at places like motor vehicle and public assistance offices in areas near Native American reservations. Washington Times (Sep 16, 2020)
  20. runoff
    an election to resolve a vote that did not produce a winner
    According to initial results, a second-round runoff was not expected in any of 18 regions that elected governors. The Guardian (Sep 13, 2020)
  21. suffrage
    a legal right to vote
    The fight for women’s suffrage was won, on a national level, 100 years ago this August. Washington Times (Sep 15, 2020)
    In Latin, suffragium means "vote," "expression of approval," or "prayer."
  22. tally
    the act of counting; reciting numbers in ascending order
    Vote tallying may begin 14 days before the election, but results may not be released until polls close. Los Angeles Times (Sep 15, 2020)
    In Medieval Europe, debts were sometimes recorded on sticks by cutting notches on them and splitting them lengthwise so each person would keep half as a record. This stick was called a talea in Anglo-Norman.
  23. ward
    a district into which a city or town is divided
    A Demos study found that average voter turnout in Black and Latino wards of Milwaukee in that primary was 30 percentage points lower than in majority white wards. The Guardian (Sep 9, 2020)
Created on Tue Sep 08 15:37:52 EDT 2020 (updated Fri Oct 16 12:59:59 EDT 2020)

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