Indirect election is a process in which voters in an election do not choose between candidates for an office but rather elect persons who will then make the choice. It is one of the oldest forms of elections and is still used today for many upper houses and presidents.
Some examples of indirectly elected bodies and individuals include:
the election of the United States President and the Vice President is indirect election. Voters elect the electoral college, which then elects the President. The President of Germany is similarly elected by a Federal Convention convened for that purpose. India and several other countries have a President or other largely ceremonial head of state elected by their parliament.
the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe, OSCE, the WEU and NATO - in all of these cases, voters elect national parliamentarians, who in turn elect some of their own members to the assembly
the German Bundesrat, where voters elect the Landtag members, who then elect the state government, which then appoints its members to the Bundesrat
most bodies formed of representatives of national governments, e.g. the United Nations General Assembly, can be considered indirectly elected (assuming the national governments are democratically elected in the first place)
In France, election to the upper house of Parliament, the Sénat, is indirect, with the electors (called "grands électeurs") being local elected representatives.
the Indian Rajya Sabha (upper house of parliament) is indirectly elected, largely by state legislatures; Manmohan Singh was a member of the Rajya Sabha but chosen by the majority party in the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) as the Prime Minister (2004-2014); as such, Singh as Prime Minister had never won a direct or popular election; introduced as a "technocrat"
the United States Senate was indirectly elected by state legislatures until, after a number of attempts over the previous century, the 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1913.
Many republics with parliamentary systems elect their president indirectly (Germany, Italy, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, India, Israel).
The election of the government in most parliamentary systems is indirect. The voters elect the parliamentarians, who then elect the government including most prominently the prime minister from among themselves For example:
in the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister usually is a member of the House of Commons, the lower, elected house of Parliament
in Spain, the Congress of Deputies votes on a motion of confidence of the king's nominee (customarily the party leader whose party controls the Congress) and the nominee's political manifesto, an example of an indirect election of the Prime Minister of Spain.
