There are a number of aspects of the democratic process that are often overlooked by the average observer. After all, provided someone is elected, preferably the candidate of your choice, how much does the method matter? The publicly known bits of an election - the campaign publicity and manifestos, the vote itself, and the announcement of results, are often the less interesting parts.
The appreciation of hacks of a good election count is well known, and many SROs were set on this path after attending one. The voting system of choice is Single Transferable Vote, though other methods are preferred when more appropriate, and the availability of a Re-Open Nominations option is considered essential.
Election turnout is considered very important, with ways to improve on previous years the subject of much discussion. The current record of 3901 voters (28.3%) is held by Jennifer Gray for the 2003-4 sabbatical elections, though higher percentage turnouts have been known in the distant (i.e. archives-only) past.
There is more about Cross-campus ballots in a separate section. While related to democracy, they have their own issues.
The implementation of electronic voting has taken place without problems (the candidates were often a nightmare crowd, but the voting system worked fine). A CotH presentation on electronic voting analysing the election and describing the voting system in detail took place in November.