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Wikipedia:Articles on elections

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikipedia has many conventions that have emerged for election coverage. These have reached enough maturity that some very good examples can be identified.

For U.S. President

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Wikipedia:Style for yyyy U.S. presidential election deals specifically with that type of election. Much of what follows still applies:

For other single-winner elections

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Mayors and Governors and other Presidents are elected also in single-winner elections that require similar documentation to US President races. Focus is on the candidates, ultimately, in such elections.

For elections of the U.S. Congress by state and house, an attempt was made to clarify what should and should not be included for candidates without their own articles. Unfortunately, there was very little of relevance or value offered. Although Jimmy Wales worked on Wikipedia during the time of the discussion, he chose not to take part.

For parliaments

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Very different rules and standards apply for elections in parliamentary systems which are often hard to anticipate, and where there is not such a focus on personalities:

An upcoming election is a future event and no matter what polls or press say, it does not have a predetermined outcome. In some cases rumours about what might happen can bias the outcome, and this is something Wikipedia literally never wants to be accused of. Try to follow the good examples of how to do this fairly:

Aftermath

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An election so strictly defined in law and practice and terminology that it can be documented very completely. After the event, a very complete article will be written, and any predicted effects or the timeline of the election can then be moved to a separate article as the actual effects are described in the article, that is now about the past event:

Worldwide, most elections are for a parliament along the British model. One good example of a recent parliamentary election showing all the best practices is:

Controversy

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Many elections are controversial. Here's some guidance about that:

Bogus

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Elections where electoral fraud is widely reported are not reported as elections at all, but, typically, as part of the biography of the incumbent political leader or "party" or faction that rigs the election, or, as part of an article on the final outcome, if the result overturns a government, as in Ukraine in 2004 and Kyrgystan in 2005.

Boring

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There are also nice boring good examples, like

Best practices and hazards

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A few best practices and hazards can also be identified:

  • Neutral point of view is always important, but just before an election it is important to update pages and watch for any systemic bias due to one party or faction or another being over-represented in the overall edit stream
  • Swing state covers a US-federal-election-specific term that changes. The definition and examples will require updating before each US election.

WikiProject

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The WikiProject Elections and Referendums will also be a place to gather tips and discuss editing of these articles. by saumil

See also

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