According to the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia, the sovereign power of the State of Latvia shall belong to the People of Latvia. One of the ways how the People can implement this power is free and democratic elections.
Since the renewal of state independence in 1990, eight parliamentary elections - in 1993, 1995, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2011, 2014 and 2018 were held in Latvia. During this time also seven municipal elections took place - in 1994, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013 and 2017.
In June 12, 2004, shortly after joining the European Union, for the first time in Latvia European Parliament elections were held. The following two EP elections took place in 2009 and 2014.
During the years voters for eight times were invited to decide on significant issues in national referendums. There have been several attempts to initiate amendments in laws by the help of signature collection procedure.
The election system of Latvia similarly as the Latvian state after the renewal of independence has experienced a succession of changes. During this time there has been a transition from plurality election system applied in the Socialistic Republic of Soviet Latvia to proportional election system which was used during the period of the first Republic of Latvia in 1920s and 1930s.
In 1993, after a break of almost sixty-two years the first democratic parliamentary elections were held in Latvia. Multi-party system has stabilized in Latvia, legislation defining election administration process have been reestablished and improved. During this time more or less substantial changes have occurred regarding all the most important issues of election organization - election rights, procedure of submission and registration of candidate lists, rights and restrictions of candidates, the course of elections, calculation of results, formation of election commissions and procedure of appeal of decision of commissions.
The next regular Saeima (Parliament) elections will be held on the first Saturday in October 2022.