An electoral system is the means by which voters make a choice between options, often in an election or on a policy referendum.

According to IFES, “an electoral system contains rules for valid voting, and how votes are counted and aggregated to yield a final result.”

Dedicated institutions implement the electoral system of each country. In Afghanistan, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) is mandated to carry out elections throughout the country.

The IEC implements all kinds of elections called for in Constitution and the Electoral Law. The followings are types of election in Afghanistan:

  • Presidential Elections
  • Parliamentary Elections
  • Provincial Council Elections
  • District Council Elections
  • Mayoral Elections
  • Municipal Elections
  • Village Council Elections

The voting and electoral systems, in democratic countries, are an important principle.  The systems have direct effect to expand and develop the political movements, economic system and power’s form.

 The electoral systems can define the politicians’ role in the society. We can describe the electoral system here with simple words, (It is a mechanism that can change people’s votes to posts of power, through a transparent and fairly election).

The considerable post or set may belong to the presidential, parliament and local councils.

Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV), system is the only system being used in Afghanistan, also being used in the countries where they practicing new election. For the first time Japan practiced this system, but many countries use Proportional, Majority and Single None-Transferable systems.

The following are the electoral systems, which would be described briefly.

A: Majority system

In this system, who have achieved the most votes, is the winner, the majority can be absolutely or proportional. The proportional and the majority stander is belonging to law.

B: Proportional system

Through this system, the parliament’s sets can be achieved by vote’s percentage, because the vote’s percentage being used in the system, which can bring the reasonable and convinced ratio in the election

Or, proportional representation is the common names for a class of voting systems that attempt to make the percentage of offices given to candidates reflect as closely as possible the percentage of votes that they received in the election. In the proportional system, political parties present more candidates rather than independents candidates. Also, votes of political parties being counted throughout the country instead of the local sites. For example, if the A party received %15 votes of election, its mean, they can have %15 of sets in the parliament.

C: Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV)

The SNTV system is from the majority systems, it’s become proportional, if the SNTV has been used in the small zones, if the system used in the zones where two or more sets are available and the  voters have rights to use single vote, any candidate received the majority of votes is the winner.