Election Word Etymology

This will not shock anyone who knows me in person or reads this blog regularly, but when it comes to words I am a big old nerd. I love grammar, I love linguistics and I love finding out where things come from. When my dad asked recently where the term vetting comes from, I couldn't concentrate on anything else until I found out. And once I started, why stop?

I realize we are eight days out from an election and this is complete fluff, but I am hoping if you're as big a nerd as I am you will find it interesting and kind of relaxing. Here we go:

Vetting-"To vet was originally a horse-racing term, referring to the requirement that a horse be checked for health and soundness by a veterinarian before being allowed to race. Thus, it has taken the general meaning 'to check.'"

Campaign-Early 17th century (denoting a tract of open country): from French campagne open country, via Italian from late Latin campania, from campus level ground (see camp). The change in sense arose from an army's practice of ‘taking the field’ (i.e. moving from a fortress or town to open country) at the onset of summer.

Ballot-mid 16th century (originally denoting a small colored ball placed in a container to register a vote): from Italian ballotta, diminutive of balla (see ball1).

Poll-from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch pol "head, top." Sense extended early 14c. to "person, individual." Meaning "collection of votes" is first recorded 1620s, from notion of "counting heads;" meaning "survey of public opinion" is first recorded 1902. Poll tax, literally "head tax," is from 1690s. Literal use in English tends toward the part of the head where the hair grows.

Candidate-c. 1600s, from Latin candidatus "one aspiring to office," originally "white-robed," past participle of candidare "to make white or bright," from candidus past participle of candere "to shine," from PIE root *kand- "to glow, to shine" (see candle). Office-seekers in ancient Rome wore white togas.

Map-early 16th century: from medieval Latin mappa mundi, literally ‘sheet of the world,’ from Latin mappa ‘sheet, napkin’ + mundi ‘of the world’ (genitive of mundus ).

Gerrymander-The word gerrymander (originally written Gerry-mander) was used for the first time in the Boston Gazette on 26 March 1812. The word was created in reaction to a redrawing of Massachusetts state senate election districts under Governor Elbridge Gerry (pronounced /ˈɡɛri/; 1744–1814). In 1812, Governor Gerry signed a bill that redistricted Massachusetts to benefit his Democratic-Republican Party. When mapped, one of the contorted districts in the Boston area was said to resemble the shape of a salamander.[1]

Caucus-"private meeting of party leaders," 1763, American English (New England), perhaps from an Algonquian word caucauasu "counselor, elder, adviser" in the dialect of Virginia, or from the Caucus Club of Boston, a 1760s social & political club whose name possibly derived from Modern Greek kaukos "drinking cup." Another old guess is caulker's (meeting) [Pickering, 1816], but OED finds this dismissable.

Canvass-Early 16th century (in the sense toss in a canvas sheet (as a sport or punishment)): from canvas. Later extended senses include criticize, discuss (mid 16th century) and propose for discussion; hence seek support for.

Vote-"formal expression of one's wish or choice with regard to a proposal, candidate, etc.," from Latin votum "a vow, wish, promise to a god, solemn pledge, dedication," noun use of neuter of votus, past participle of vovere "to promise, dedicate" (see vow (n.)). Meaning "totality of voters of a certain class or type" is from 1888.

Election Words

I'd like to demonstrate one of the many things I did not like about my grad school. I was writing a report with a group of my classmates for a big consulting client and in that report I used the terms "first past the post" and "proportional representation." One of my classmates strenuously objected to me using these terms because they were "jargon" and she didn't know what they meant. First, call me my father's daughter, but I thought we went to an ivy league public policy school where at the very least if you are unfamiliar with a term you look it up. Second, I don't want to live in a world where public professionals not only don't know the difference between a first past the post and proportional representation system, but they assume that the people who work at our most prominent international peace and governance organization don't either. (Spoiler alert: those words wound up all over our report.) So lest you fall victim to my particular brand of snobbery and because as someone who gives you advice, I thought you should know, here are some common electoral system terms and their definitions*:

(Absolute) Majority- More than half.

Plurality (Aka Relative Majority)- Used in elections when somebody gets the most of anyone else, but not necessarily more than half.

First Past the Post- (Aka Winner Takes All or Simple Plurality) The candidate(s) with the highest number of votes win(s).

Single Member Legislative District- A district that returns one member to a body (for example Congress) that has multiple members.

Single Seat Plurality- The winner of the one seat in question is the person with the most votes.

Multiple Member First Past the Post- The first number of candidates, in order of highest vote, corresponding to the number of positions to be filled are elected. (If there are six vacancies then the first six candidates with the highest vote are elected.)

Fusion Voting (Aka Electoral Fusion)- two or more political parties on a ballot list the same candidate, pooling the votes for that candidate.

Proportional Representation- System in which the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received by that group.

Party List Proportional Representation- System in which parties make lists of candidates to be elected, and seats get allocated to each party in proportion to the number of votes the party receives.

Closed List- A party list proportional representation in which the voters effectively vote for party and do not have any influence over in which the candidates who represent them are elected.

Open List- A party list proportional representation in which the voters effectively vote for party and have some influence over the specific candidates who represent them or the order in which they are elected.

Constituency- in this case voting distict (I know, mind blown.)

Preferential Voting/Rank Order Voting (Aka Preferential Voting)- Voters place candidates in order of preference (1st,2nd,3rd...)

Borda Count- Votes are counted by assigning a point value to each place in the hierarchy, and the choice with the largest number of points is selected.

Instant Runoff Voting (Aka Alternative Vote)- Type of preferential voting in which if no candidate gets a majority of votes, the votes voters cast for the candidate that received the smallest number of first preference rankings are redistributed to those voters' second choice and so on until some candidate receives a majority.

Single Transferable Vote- a voting system designed to achieve proportional representation through ranked voting in multi-seat constituencies. Voters have a single vote that is initially allocated to his or her most preferred candidate, and then, as the count proceeds and candidates are either elected or eliminated, is transferred to other candidates according to the voter's stated preferences, in proportion to any surplus or discarded votes.

Supplementary vote- Voters express a first and second choice of candidate only, and, if no candidate receives an absolute majority of first choice votes, all but the two leading candidates are eliminated and the votes of those eliminated redistributed according to their second choice votes to determine the winner.

Range Voting- Voting method for one-seat elections under which voters score each candidate, the scores are added up, and the candidate with the highest score wins.

Bucklin Voting- System in which all votes on all ballots that are above some threshold are counted, and then adjusting that threshold down until a majority is reached.

Exhaustive Ballots- System in which a voter casts a single vote for his or her favorite candidate. If no candidate is supported by an overall majority of votes then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and a further round of voting occurs.

Open Primary- Primary election in which voters can vote in any party primary regardless of their party affiliation.

Closed Primary- People may vote in a party's primary only if they are registered members of that party prior to election day. Non-affiliated voters cannot participate.

Semi-closed Primary- Registered party members can vote only in their own party's primary. Unaffiliated voters can vote in any party's primary.

Parallel Voting (Aka Mixed Member Majoritarian)- System in which voters in effect participate in two separate elections for a single chamber using different systems, and where the results in one election have little or no impact on the results of the other. For example, in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies and Chamber of Senators some Deputies and Senators are election in first past the post election and some are elected in a proportional representation system.

Plurality at Large Voting (Aka Block Voting or Multiple Non-Transferable Vote)- A non-proportional voting system for electing several representatives from a single multi-member electoral district using a series of check boxes and tallying votes similar to a plurality election. Although multiple winners are elected simultaneously, block voting is not a system for obtaining proportional representation; instead, the usual result is that the largest single group wins every seat by electing a slate of candidates.

Direct Election- A system of choosing political officeholders in which the voters directly cast ballots for the person, persons or political party that they desire to see elected (as opposed to voters electing electors who then cast a vote for the office holder.)

*Note that these definitions were crossed referenced with Wikipedia and sometimes ripped or paraphrased therefrom.
** In full disclosure, some of these I did not know before I went to grad school.

Words, Words, Words

Activist and Precinct Captain to the stars, Brad Kerr, tipped me off to this article about a new study which found that asking people "Will you be a voter?" rather than "Will you vote?" made them up to fourteen percent more likely to vote!

The group polled wasn't huge, but the findings are pretty interesting (especially if you're a giant nerd like me).

Identity is a powerful thing.