How Baha'i elections were conducted in the past, before 1995?

...in a message of December 1995 to the Councilors, the House of Justice envisaged that this could lead to a substantial loss in the number of Local Assemblies. What does this mean? It means that henceforth the primary responsibility for the formation of Local Spiritual Assemblies will rest with the individual members of that community. Not in somebody sent from a distant location to round up relatively passive members of the community and say "Today is Ridvan, you haven't heard of Ridvan? Well never mind. It is Ridvan. We're going to go through this election and these nine people, not all of whom may be present, are the members of the Local Assembly and I'll be back next Ridvan and we'll go through the whole thing again." From now on self motivation is going to be central to the life of Bahá'í communities, and this hard decision, if I may call it that, will quite likely lead to a substantial loss in the number of Local Spiritual Assemblies next Ridvan.

(1995: Four Year Plan, Peter J. Khan, 1996-09-29)

https://bahai-library.com/khan_1995_four-year_plan