Nonpartisan election

A nonpartisan election is an election where the candidates run without any official party affiliation. These elections generally involve local races such as for city council or school board.

However, in practice, a candidate will either be a member of a political party or hold to positions identifying with one, and the candidate's leanings are generally well-known by the general public.

An example of a "nonpartisan election" is that for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors: although officially "nonpartisan", all eleven members are members of the Democratic Party.

The distinction is important under the Hatch Act: a Federal employee may run as a candidate in a nonpartisan election, but (outside of areas where Federal employees are the majority of the population) not in a partisan election