United States

In establishing the electoral college, the framers stipulated that “Congress may determine the Time of chusing [sic] the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.” In 1845 Congress established that presidential electors would be appointed on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November; the electors cast their ballots on the Monday following the second Wednesday in December. Article I, establishing Congress, merely provides (Section 2) that representatives are to be “chosen every second Year by the People of the several States” and that voting qualifications are to be the same for Congress as for the “most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.” Initially, senators were chosen by their respective state legislatures (Section 3), though this was changed to popular election by the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. Section 4 leaves to the states the prescription of the “Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives” but gives Congress the power “at any time by Law [to] make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” In 1875 Congress designated the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in even years as federal election day.

Suffrage

All citizens at least 18 years of age are eligible to vote. (Prisoners, ex-felons, and individuals on probation or parole are prohibited, sometimes permanently, from voting in some states.) The history of voting rights in the United States has been one of gradual extension of the franchise. Religion, property ownership, race, and gender have disappeared one by one as legal barriers to voting. In 1870, through the Fifteenth Amendment, former slaves were granted the right to vote, though African Americans were subsequently still denied the franchise (particularly in the South) through devices such as literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses. Only in the 1960s, through the Twenty-fourth Amendment (barring poll taxes) and the Voting Rights Act, were the full voting rights of African Americans guaranteed. Though universal manhood suffrage had theoretically been achieved following the American Civil War, woman suffrage was not fully guaranteed until 1920 with the enactment of the Nineteenth Amendment (several states, particularly in the West, had begun granting women the right to vote and to run for political office beginning in the late 19th century). Suffrage was also extended by the Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971), which lowered the minimum voting age to 18.

woman suffrage Woman suffrage advocates parading in an open car in support of ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted women the right to vote in federal elections.George Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital file no. 19032)

Voting and elections

Voters go to the polls in the United States not only to elect members of Congress and presidential electors but also to cast ballots for state and local officials, including governors, mayors, and judges, and on ballot initiatives and referendums that may range from local bond issues to state constitutional amendments (see referendum and initiative). The 435 members of the House of Representatives are chosen by the direct vote of the electorate in single-member districts in each state. State legislatures (sometimes with input from the courts) draw congressional district boundaries, often for partisan advantage (see gerrymandering); incumbents have always enjoyed an electoral advantage over challengers, but, as computer technology has made redistricting more sophisticated and easier to manipulate, elections to the House of Representatives have become even less competitive, with more than 90 percent of incumbents who choose to run for reelection regularly winning—often by significant margins. By contrast, Senate elections are generally more competitive.

polling placeA polling place sign posted at a polling station, November 2, 2010, in Drake, Kentucky. Tom Pennington—Getty Images/Thinkstock