Elections in the Roman Republic
In the Roman Republic, elections were held annually for every major magistracy. They were conducted before two assemblies : the centuriate and tribal assemblies. The centuriate assembly, made up of centuries divided by wealth and age, elected the senior magistrates: those with imperium and the censors. The tribal assembly, made up of tribes grouped by geography, elected all other magistrates. Plebeian tribunes and aediles were also elected by the tribal assembly although in a slightly different form.
The formal electoral process started with an announcement by the prospective presiding magistrate of an election day, typically in July. Candidates then professed their candidacy to that magistrate. On the day of the election, the voting unit – centuries or tribes – would be called to give their votes. Citizens voted in person for their candidate and the unit registered one vote for each open post. Once a candidate received a majority, 97 centuries or 18 tribes, he won and was removed from the contest. Once all posts were filled, elections ended and all centuries or tribes that had not voted were dismissed. If nightfall came before elections were complete, the entire process had to restart, typically on the next legislative day.
There were no political parties in the republic. Candidates campaigned largely on their own personal virtue, personal or family reputation, or gifts distributed to voters. Reflecting the unpredictability of elections, bribes given to voters in the form of money, food, and games were a common and burdensome campaign expense. Regardless, those with a family reputation in politics – and a family name that could be recognised by the voters – regularly dominated electoral results.
Roman elections, while extremely important for political life because no legislation could be passed without the initiative of a magistrate, were not representative of the citizenry. The malapportionment of the comitia centuriata weighted the 193 centuries, each of which received one vote, strongly towards the old and rich. The comitia tributa gave each of the 35 tribes the same vote even if the number of voters within them was wildly different. Moreover, because all public affairs were conducted in person, poorer people from the countryside unable to take the time off to travel to Rome were unable to exercise their rights. And even though all freed slaves became citizens on manumission, they were confined to the four "urban" tribes regardless of actual residence, limiting their voice in politics. Scholars have estimated that, in the late republic, turnout could not have been more than about 10 per cent.
After the fall of the republic and the establishment of the Roman Empire, elections – thoroughly dominated by the emperor's influence – initially continued. However, during the reign of Tiberius, the power of nomination was transferred to the senate. Then on, with a short interlude under Caligula, all magistrates were nominated in a list that was then inevitably confirmed by an assembly. After some time, this too was abolished. Elections at the municipal level, conducted under bylaws which were generally modelled on the republican constitution, however, continued well into the first and second centuries AD.
Procedure
Elections customarily took place around the same time each year in the centuriate and tribal assemblies under similar procedures. After Sulla's constitutional reforms, this was normally in July. A proclamation was issued by the magistrate who would oversee the elections in a public meeting – a contio – which was memorialised in writing and posted publicly.Roman religion permeated this process and elections could not be held on days which were reserved for religious business. After the lex Caecilia Didia in 98 BC, a trinundinum – three market days – was observed between the announcement and taking place of elections. Prior to the election itself, auguries also had to be taken to screen for inauspicious omens. Moreover, all elections had to be conducted within a single day prior to nightfall.
After a public prayer calling on the support of the gods for the Roman people and those who were to be elected, the magistrate instructed the citizens to divide and to vote. Citizens then reported to their relevant division and presented themselves to officials who would record their vote.The comitia centuriata elected the consuls, praetors, and censors. There were 193 voting blocks, called centuries, which always convened outside Rome on the Campus Martius. Citizens were assigned to centuries based on their age and wealth, with the old and wealthy receiving more centuries as a proportion of the population. Reforms intervened in the third century BC to link the number of centuries to the number of tribes. Specifically, the first census class which had eighty centuries was reduced to seventy; this created one junior and senior century – members divided by age – for each of the thirty-five tribes. However, the resulting division of centuries for the second through fifth classes is not known. Regardless, even after these reforms, the centuries remained malapportioned heavily in favour of older and wealthier citizens.
Prior to those reforms, when the consul ordered the centuries to divide and vote, the eighteen equestrian centuries were first to vote. After the reforms, the first to vote was the centuria praerogativa, selected by lot from the junior centuries of the first class. This century's result was immediately announced and was widely seen as an omen on the election: Cicero notes that this result secured the election of at least one of the consuls. Roman religion regularly interpreted chance emerging from lot as divining the will of the gods. The result from the prerogative century had religious significance; it also served a political purpose by randomising results – minimising divisions within the oligarchy – and nudging the remaining centuries to vote accordingly.
After the prerogative century, the remaining junior centuries of the first class voted, followed by the first class' senior centuries and the eighteen equestrian centuries. After those eighty-eight centuries voted, the second class was called. Because the first class, equestrians, and second class made up a majority of voting units, if they all agreed on who should be elected, all posts would now be filled and voting would then end. Only when upper divisions disagreed did the lower classes, called in rank order, vote. Substantial debate has been had over whether elections continued into the lower classes due to divisions in the upper ones; views range from rare extension into the third class to elections regularly extension into the fourth.The comitia tributa elected all other magistrates, including the aediles, plebeian tribunes, quaestors, and military tribunes. While there has been made a distinction between a comitia tributa called by the normal magistrates that includes patricians and a concilium plebis called by plebeian tribunes of plebeians only, it is not clear whether this distinction mattered. Regardless, both operated under the same procedure and were differentiated only by the presiding magistrate.
The assembly had, by 241 BC, thirty-five voting blocks called tribes. Citizens were assigned to tribes based on where they resided. Four of the thirty-five tribes were assigned to the city of Rome itself and called "urban" tribes. These tribes too were malapportioned since there was no guarantee that each tribe would have an at all similar number of voters. The rest of the tribes, termed "rural", could also encompass territory extremely distant from Rome, which, due to the requirement that all votes had to be given at Rome, has led to many scholars viewing those voters as effectively disenfranchised. Whether this was actually the case, however, is debated.
The traditional meeting place of an electoral tribal assembly was the Forum – near the rostra and comitium – or the summit of the Capitoline Hill near the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. It is not known when exactly these electoral assemblies were moved to the campus Martius, but it was certainly after the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC. After the move, the voters were there divided into their tribes by wooden fencing and rope.
The first tribe to be called, the principium, was selected by lot among the thirty-one rural tribes. Prior to the move to the campus Martius, the tribes then voted in a sequence set by lot. However, after the move, the tribes then all voted simultaneously. It it not known whether there was an sequence of voters within each tribe. While all tribes voted simultaneously, their results were announced in an order determined by lot: this continued until a candidate received the votes of 18 tribes, a majority. Once the number of candidates corresponding to the number of open offices had been elected, all remaining votes were discarded.
Elections, however, to the post of pontifex maximus were different. He was not elected by the whole Roman people. Under the presidency of a pontifex, seventeen tribes – one less than a majority – selected by lot then voted under the same procedure. Between 104 and the dictatorship of Sulla, and then after 63 BC, this was also extended to all priesthoods.
After the election
The presiding magistrate had the power to reject electoral results both of the election as a whole and of any one voting block. Magistrates were elected for a specific term. Winners of elections which took place before that term started became magistrates-designate; winners of elections within the term itself assumed office immediately either because elections could not have been held previously or because the previous officeholder was dead. Most magistracies took office at the start of the new year which after 153 BC was set to be 1 January.However, before they could take office, a trial for electoral bribery could intervene. This was instituted some time by 115 BC, when the first known trial – that of Gaius Marius in praetorian elections – was held. By the late republic, a permanent court was established for such cases and allegations of electoral bribery were extremely common. In some cases, the whole slates of victors could be prosecuted, as in the consular elections of 65 BC. That year, the two consuls-designate were convicted and the results were thrown out, with elections held anew. The corrupt winners were removed from the senate and disqualified from office for ten years. Legislation in the late republic made such penalties more severe, with exile being decreed the punishment after the lex Tullia in 63 BC and further penalties also extended to those who assisted candidates in distributing those bribes.
Moreover, for those magistrates with imperium, a further vote was customary before the comitia curiata. During the republican period, this assembly, which was theoretically made up of thirty curiae into which all Roman citizens were assigned, was a pro forma affair. Instead, the entire people were symbolically represented by thirty lictors who would in all cases ritually vote through a lex curiata de imperio bestowing the power of command on the magistrate as it had been in the days of the kings.