Editing Election (section)

==Timing==
The nature of democracy is that elected officials are accountable to the people, and they must return to the voters at prescribed intervals to seek their [[mandate (politics)|mandate]] to continue in office. For that reason, most democratic constitutions provide that elections are held at fixed regular intervals. In the United States, elections for public offices are typically held between every two and six years in most states and at the federal level, with exceptions for elected judicial positions that may have longer terms of office. There is a variety of schedules, for example, presidents: the [[President of Ireland]] is elected every seven years, the [[President of Russia]] and the [[President of Finland]] every six years, the [[President of France]] every five years, [[President of the United States]] every four years.

Predetermined or fixed election dates have the advantage of fairness and predictability. They tend to greatly lengthen campaigns, and make [[dissolution of parliament|dissolving the legislature]] (parliamentary system) more problematic if the date should happen to fall at a time when dissolution is inconvenient (e.g. when war breaks out). Other states (e.g., the [[United Kingdom]]) only set maximum time in office, and the executive decides exactly when within that limit it will actually go to the polls. In practice, this means the government remains in power for close to its full term, and chooses an election date it calculates to be in its best interests (unless something special happens, such as a [[motion of no-confidence]]). This calculation depends on a number of variables, such as its performance in opinion polls and the size of its majority.

'''Rolling elections''' are elections in which all [[Representative democracy|representatives]] in a body are elected, but these elections are spread over a period of time rather than all at once. Examples are the presidential [[primaries]] in the [[United States]], [[Elections to the European Parliament]] (where, due to differing election laws in each member state, elections are held on different days of the same week) and, due to logistics, general elections in [[Elections in Lebanon|Lebanon]] and [[Elections in India|India]]. The voting procedure in the [[Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Republic]] are also a classical example.

In rolling elections, voters have information about previous voters' choices. While in the first elections, there may be plenty of hopeful candidates, in the last rounds consensus on one winner is generally achieved. In today's context of rapid communication, candidates can put disproportionate resources into competing strongly in the first few stages, because those stages affect the reaction of latter stages.