ELECTION, in politics, the mode of deter mining the person who is to fill an office by the votes of the qualified electors. Alternative methods are selection by someone already in authority or by lot. The electors may be the entire body of those of the citizens of the region concerned who fulfil certain very general i requirements, as is the case in the various State elections for governor or the election of sena tors and representatives, or may be some rela tively small body of officials, as in the direct* election of senators by the State legisla tures, which was alone legal until 1913, when the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. In the case of the elected kings of Poland and Hungary and of the Holy Ro man emperor, the election was in the hands of a greater or smaller group. The election of the President of the United States, though nominally entrusted to a representative body of men — the electoral college is now to all intents and purposes of the direct type, as by custom the electors are mere mouthpieces of the popular vote. The honesty and fairness of elections is secured by stringent laws and by various devices to secure secrecy of the ballot. These are discussed under the head of BALLOT. See also ELECTIONS; CORRUPT PRAC TICES ACM; ELECTORAL FRAUDS AND SAFEGUARDS AGAINST; VOTE, VOTERS, VOTING.
Election is a very old political device. While election by acclamation has always been a recog nized means of determining the chief in certain savage communities, it was in the city-states of Greece and in republican Rome that the ballot first became the basis of the government of a highly organized civilized community. This right was limited to some more or less restricted class of free citizens, and was gener ally exercised in an open assembly not unlike the Nevi England town meeting—the Ecclesia of Athens or the Roman Conutia. From the period when the empire first made the comitia a mere form and thai abolished it altogether to the reappearance of the a.ssembly of the
people as a custom of the northern barbarians, election ceased to play any important part in politics. It survived in a measure m the Church and it reappeared in a very limited form as the method of selecting the Holy Roman em peror. The first renascence of a genuinely popular election after the races of the north had lost almost all memory of their original custom of settling disputes and electing their chiefs in the council of the warriors, was in the form of the election of the officers of the guilds and of the free towns. (See article, Etrzttoics and cross-references thereunder). Consult Aristotle, (Politics); Freeman, 'Com parative Politics) (London 1873) Jones, 'Read ings on Parties and Elections in the United States) (New York 1912) ; Stanwood 'History of the Presidency) (Boston 1912) ; Woolsey, 'Political Science) (New York 1877).
ELECTrON, in theology, the word (singu lar) is applied to the act of God in selecting some persons front the race of rnan to be re generated by his spirit, to be justified, to be sanctified, and to receive other spiritual gifts in this world, with eternal life in the next. The Calvinistic doctrine makes this election take place by God's mere good pleasure, with out any foreseen merit in the individuals chosen. The Arminian one considers that God chooses those whom he foresees will accept the offer of the Gospel and act as true Christians till"death. The third chapter of the Westminster Confes sion, entitled *Of God's Eternal Decree,* uses more decided language. The strongest adher ents of this view are in the Presbyterian churches, though there is a tendency to soften the harsher features of the system. Many Baptists hold the same doctrine, as do the Cal vinistic Methodists.