What Is A By-election?

A by-election is an election that is held during the period between general elections in order to elect a new member from a constituency. The reasons for by-elections being held are the death of the incumbent or resignation from office due to ineligibility arising from events like a criminal conviction.

A by-election is usually held in nations where a single member is selected from a constituency like in most commonwealth countries for example the UK and India. In multi-member constituencies usually the vacancy of one seat leads to by-elections for all the seats from that constituency.

By-elections generally do not result in any problems arising for the government as in most cases the ruling party has a comfortable majority in the parliament which remains unaffected by the by-election results. However by-elections are seen to be an indicator of the popularity of the government with implications for the next general elections.