List of elections in 2016

The following elections are scheduled to occur in the year 2016.

Africa

Ghana

South Africa

Somalia

Asia

Japan

Hong Kong

Mongolia

Philippines

South Korea

Republic of China (Taiwan)

Europe

Austria

Czech Republic

England and Wales

Georgia

Election

An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the executive and judiciary, and for regional and local government. This process is also used in many other private and business organizations, from clubs to voluntary associations and corporations.

The universal use of elections as a tool for selecting representatives in modern representative democracies is in contrast with the practice in the democratic archetype, ancient Athens, where the Elections were considered an oligarchic institution and most political offices were filled using sortition, also known as allotment, by which officeholders were chosen by lot.

Electoral reform describes the process of introducing fair electoral systems where they are not in place, or improving the fairness or effectiveness of existing systems. Psephology is the study of results and other statistics relating to elections (especially with a view to predicting future results).

Donald Trump

Donald John Trump, Sr. (born June 14, 1946) is an American businessperson and media personality. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Trump's career, branding efforts, personal life, wealth, and outspoken manner have made him famous throughout the country. Since 2015, he is also a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 2016 election.

Trump is a native of New York City and a son of Fred Trump, who inspired him to enter real estate development. After two years at Fordham University and while studying at Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Trump worked for his father's firm, Elizabeth Trump & Son. Upon graduating in 1968 he joined the company, and in 1971 was given control, renaming the company "The Trump Organization". Since then he has built hotels, golf courses, and other properties, many of which bear his name. He is a major figure in the American business scene and has received prominent media exposure. The NBC reality show The Apprentice bolstered his fame, and his three marriages were extensively reported in tabloids.

Mitt Romney

Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and politician who served as the 70th Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007. Following his service as Governor, Romney was the Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 election.

Raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, by his parents George and Lenore Romney, Mitt Romney spent two and a half years in France as a Mormon missionary starting in 1966. He married Ann Davies in 1969, and they have five sons. By 1971, Romney had participated in the political campaigns of both of his parents. In that year, he earned a Bachelor of Arts at Brigham Young and in 1975, a joint Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration at Harvard. Romney then entered the management consulting industry and in 1977 secured a position at Bain & Company. Later serving as its chief executive officer, he helped lead the company out of financial crisis. In 1984, he cofounded and led the spin-off company Bain Capital, a highly profitable private equity investment firm that became one of the largest of its kind in the nation. Active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Romney served during his business career as the bishop of his ward (head of his local congregation) and then stake president in his home area near Boston. After stepping down from Bain Capital and his local leadership role in the church, he ran as the Republican candidate in the 1994 Massachusetts election for U.S. Senate. Upon losing to longtime incumbent Ted Kennedy, he resumed his position at Bain Capital. Years later, a successful stint as president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics led to a relaunch of his political career.

John McCain

John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican presidential nominee in the 2008 United States presidential election.

McCain followed his father and grandfather, both four-star admirals, into the United States Navy, graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958. He became a naval aviator, flying ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he was almost killed in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. In October 1967, while on a bombing mission over Hanoi, he was shot down, seriously injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese. He was a prisoner of war until 1973. McCain experienced episodes of torture, and refused an out-of-sequence early repatriation offer. His war wounds left him with lifelong physical limitations.

He retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981 and moved to Arizona, where he entered politics. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, he served two terms, and was then elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, winning re-election easily four times, most recently in 2010. While generally adhering to conservative principles, McCain at times has had a media reputation as a "maverick" for his willingness to disagree with his party on certain issues. After being investigated and largely exonerated in a political influence scandal of the 1980s as a member of the Keating Five, he made campaign finance reform one of his signature concerns, which eventually led to the passage of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002. He is also known for his work towards restoring diplomatic relations with Vietnam in the 1990s, and for his belief that the war in Iraq should be fought to a successful conclusion. McCain has chaired the Senate Commerce Committee, opposed spending that he considered to be pork barrel, and played a key role in alleviating a crisis over judicial nominations.