Rolling elections are elections in which all representatives in a body are reelected, but these elections are spread over a period of time rather than all at once. Examples are the presidential primaries in the United States, the Bundesrat in Germany and, due to logistics, general elections in Lebanon and India. The voting procedure in the Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Republic are also a classical example.
In rolling elections, voters have information about previous voters' choices. While in the first elections, there may be plenty of hopeful candidates, in the last rounds consensus on one winner is generally achieved. In today's context of rapid communication, presidential candidates can put disproportionate resources into competing strongly in the first few stages, because those stages affect the reaction of latter stages.
Rolling elections are not to be confused with staggered elections when not all members of a body have to face reelection at the same time.
Famous quotes containing the words rolling and/or election:
“... in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing. When one of us dies, they scarcely know where to bury him.... We have no house, no place, no people of our own. We live in the streets, in the parks, in the theatres. We sit in restaurants and concert halls and look about at the hundreds of our own kind and shudder.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“What a glorious time they must have in that wilderness, far from mankind and election day!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)