Castro just announced he will not hold onto power.

Some people prefer fixed election dates. Municipal election dates in Cuba are fixed for every two and a half years. Some people want bottom-up rather than top-down democracy. Elections in Cuba reflect a bottom-up form of democracy where the municipalities are elected first and then its members elect the provincial governments that elect the National Assembly (parliament). The Assembly elects the Council of State (the supreme governing body), which elects the President.

Everybody wants high voter participation. Cuba's election turnout (95 per cent ) was among the highest in the world, in fact, the highest among countries with non-compulsory voting. The Americans and the dissidents wanted Cubans to deposit blank ballots as a sign of protest against the system, but the number of blank ballots (four per cent) was no greater than in the past. Cynics might say that Cubans are forced to vote. But voting is not mandatory. Dissidents and human rights activists did not vote. In contrast, voting is compulsory in more than 30 free countries like Australia, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Cyprus, and some elections in France. Voter turnout in Cuba is helped by the fact that elections are held on a Sunday and voter registration is automatic.

In the October elections, 37,258 candidates competed for 15, 236 posts. There were at least two and sometimes three or more contenders for a seat and candidates sometimes have to go through two, not just one election. If a candidate does no receive at least half of all the votes cast then a second round of elections is held a week after in which the two leading candidates in the first round compete and the rest are removed. This forces candidates to have widespread acceptance. Cuban elections are not competitive between parties since only the communist party is legal, but it is competitive between candidates. The candidates do not have to be members of the communist party and usually about one-third are not.

Elections should not be determined by money. There is no financial competition between campaigns in Cuba and money does not determine who wins as it does in so many western elections. Information about candidates is posted in communities. The National Electoral Commission regulates elections. One of Cuba's electoral rules is that you can vote from the age of 16, probably the only country where this is the case. Another rarity in Cuba is that the polling stations are also manned by children, possible only because there is no violence and cheating found in so many other democracies. Children in the fifth to ninth grades learn about the system of voting as a civic responsibility and assist disabled voters at the same time.