Image:Freedom House electoral democracies 2006.png

Summary

• Description: This Map of Electoral Democracies (shown in blue) reflects the findings of Freedom House's 2006 survey Freedom in the World (PDF). To qualify as an Electoral Democracy, a state must have:
  • A competitive multi-party political system.
  • Universal adult suffrage for all citizens. (With exceptions for restrictions that states may legitimately place on citizens as sanctions for criminal offenses)
  • Regularly contested elections conducted in conditions of ballot secrecy, reasonable ballot security, and in the absence of massive voter fraud that yields results that are unrepresentative of the public will.
  • Significant public access of major political parties to the electorate through the media and through generally open political campaigning.

The ranking reflects a judgment about the last major national election/elections. In the case of presidential/parliamentary systems, both elections for the key offices must have been free and fair on the basis of the above criteria; in parliamentary systems, the last nationwide elections for the national legislature must have been free and fair. A country cannot be listed as an electoral democracy if it reflects the ongoing and overwhelming dominance of a single party or movement over numerous national elections. Such states are designated as dominant party states. Nor can a country be an electoral democracy if significant authority for national decisions resides in the hands of an unelected power (whether a monarch or a foreign or international authority). A country is removed from the ranks of electoral democracies if its last national election has failed to meet the criteria listed above, or if changes in law significantly erode the public's possibility for electoral choice.

• Source: Created by , based on BlankMap-World.png by Vardion.
• License: GFDL.

Licensing

Acntx on the English Wikipedia project has granted permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled " GNU Free Documentation License." Subject to disclaimers.