This template marks the beginning of a table and defines borders, margins, background colours, and text alignment within the table. (Default alignment is "right", others must be specified.) Table rows and cells are written as usual, and the table is closed with "|}"

For example, to have a table as shown below, include the code shown to the right:

{{electiontable|Table template pagename}}
'''Summary of [[Mars|Martian]] election results,
2020'''
|-style="background:#E9E9E9;"
!colspan="2" align="left"|Parties
!Votes
!%
!+/-
!Seats
!+/-
|-
|bgcolor="#ff0000"|
|align="left"|The red party
|6042
|45.40
| -4.41
|23
| -2
|-
|bgcolor="#00ff00"|
|align="left"|The green party
|5678
|42.67
| +1.23
|21
|0
|-
|bgcolor="#0000ff"|
|align="left"|Free Mars
|345
|2.59
| +2.59
|1
| +1
|-
|bgcolor="#eeeeee"|
|align="left"|None of the above (unfilled seats)
|1242
|9.33
| +.59
|5
| +1
|-style="background:#E9E9E9;"
!colspan="2" align="left"|Total
!13307
!align="center" colspan="2"|100%
!align="center" colspan="2"|50
|}
 •  Summary of Martian election results, 2020
Parties Votes % +/- Seats +/-
The red party 6042 45.40 -4.41 23 -2
The green party 5678 42.67 +1.23 21 0
Free Mars 345 2.59 +2.59 1 +1
None of the above (unfilled seats) 1242 9.33 +.59 5 +1
Total 13307 100% 50

Instead of {{electiontable|template pagename}} '''Title''' you can use {{electiontable|template pagename|Title}}

To add class="sortable", use ...|sortable=yes}}. If you use this, you will need to edit your table to have |- class="sortbottom" as the row separator for the total row. If you want a specific column not to be sortable, specify class="unsortable" in the attributes of its header cell. Sorted tables do not currently work with tables using colspan. See Help:Sorting for more information about sorting.

To align the table on the right side of the page, use ...|align=right}}.

To suppress the editlink, use ...|editlink=no}}.