ABSTRACT
There is no one right way of conducting elections, but there are a number of ways which are clearly wrong: wrong in the logical sense that they apply the machinery of elections to negate the declared objects of the machinery. This sometimes happens because electoral systems are introduced in conditions quite unsuitable for them, and they are therefore distorted by social forces in a way which no one ever intended: sometimes because dominant regimes deliberately take refuge in ‘new-speak’ and ‘double-think’, and use the formula of free elections to disguise a situation in which no free choice is offered; sometimes perhaps, because of purely administrative mistakes, failures to set up electoral machinery suitable to the society within which it is to operate.
