By-district vs. at-large election boundaries
Each elected political office is elected by voters in a certain geographical area. For example, a governor is elected by all voters in the state, and a city mayor is elected by all voters in the city.
But for many types of elected offices—especially at the local level, such as city councils or school districts—how officials are elected varies from place to place. A school board member in one school district may be elected by all voters in the school district, but in another school district, even in the same state, school board members may be elected by smaller geographical areas within the school district.
For example, a city council member for Ward 1 may be elected only by voters in their ward on the East side of the city, while the Ward 2 council member is elected only by the voters in their ward on the West side.
This is where two key terms come into play as it relates to how a particular office is elected and who (which geographical area) elects them: "at-large" and "by-district" methods.
- At-Large
When a political office is elected by the entire geographical area that it represents, this is called "at-large" voting.
- By-District
When a political office is elected by a subset of the geographical area, we call this "by district" voting. A city council member who is elected by only a portion of the city (e.g. a subdistrict or ward) is elected by district.
The amount of variance in how local officials are elected requires detailed research. Tools like Ballotpedia's Sample Ballot Lookup rely on identifying these differences and finding the relevant mapping and boundary data to present to voters a clear picture of what might be on the ballot in their specific area.
Examples
- A mayor is elected "at-large" by the entire city.
- A state legislator is a state-level lawmaker, but is elected "by-district" by a particular part of the state; not everyone in the state sees the same legislative elections on their ballot.
- In Denver, Colorado, the city council has thirteen members. Eleven are elected by the city's eleven districts, while two are elected at large and thus appear to on the ballots of everyone in that city.
