In British English, a walkover or W.O. or Willy Olsen is the awarding of a victory to a contestant because there are no other contestants, or because the other contestants have been disqualified or have forfeited. The term can apply in sport, but can also apply to elections. This is also typically referred to as winning "by default".
The word originates from horse-racing in the United Kingdom, where an entrant in a one-horse race run under Jockey Club rules has to "walk over" the course before being awarded victory. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it thus: "a race in which through absence of competitors the winner has merely to ‘walk over’; also in extended sense, a contest in which through the inferiority of his competitors the winner has practically no opposition. Anything accomplished with great ease".
The only Olympic Games walkover was at the 1908 Summer Olympics, when Wyndham Halswelle won a rerun of the 400 metres race as the two other athletes refused to take part in the rerun.
The term is also used in competitive sports to describe the ease in which a given contest was won, for example, "the match was a walk over". It is used in regards to the ease of a victory, due to the inferiority of an opposing team/individual, rather than being indicative of a heavy defeat.
A walkover is usually the sign of a very strong mandate or unanimous support. It can however can be interpreted by critics of the faction the walkover is awarded to as a suspicious sign of electoral fraud or gerrymandering to prevent other candidates from participating. The circumstances of such an interpretation are usually controversial. Walkovers can thus often be a sign of an illiberal democracy.
In civic organisations and civic societies, where personal charisma and personal politics often dominate, while parties or factions are often interested in a seat, they may not contest that seat is being held by a long-standing or very popular individual, because of fear of being seen as "rocking the boat". In elections for these societies, there is often "pre-election politics" where candidates attempt to figure out who is running for which positions; in this cat and mouse game, elected positions are thus often effectively decided by internal politics before a single vote is cast.
Many liberal democracies in history, including the history of United States, have had uncontested elections because support for one candidate was so strong. In the United States presidential elections of 1789 and 1792, George Washington ran uncontested for President, although in the latter election the ballot for the Vice President was contested by both Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. In the 1820 election, James Monroe also ran unopposed, though New Hampshire elector William Plumer cast a vote for John Quincy Adams as a symbolic measure.
Walkovers are called acclamation in Canada.
Other multi-party systems that have held uncontested presidential elections include Germany, Singapore, Ireland, Algeria, Iceland, and Zimbabwe.
Running without opponents is not always a guarantee for election. Many elections require that the winner has not only the most votes of all candidates but the majority of all votes cast. In this case voters can usually abstain or vote against the candidate and not achieving the required majority usually leads to a second vote.