What voting asks of you, country by country
How the world celebratesArticle 14 of Brazil's constitution makes voting a duty for citizens between eighteen and seventy, and you must account for missing it. Taiwan's Public Officials Election and Recall Act says in Article 17 that you vote at the polling station of your household registration — there is no absentee ballot, so election day becomes an island-wide journey home. China's constitution reserves direct election for the county and township level. And in the United States, federal law fixes election day as the Tuesday after the first Monday in November — a day that is not a holiday. One act, seven different answers to who may vote, where, and whether the day belongs to you.
Quick answers
| Place | When is it? | How the date is set |
|---|---|---|
| United States | Date to be confirmed | Year-round |
| Brazil | Date to be confirmed | Year-round |
| China | Date to be confirmed | Year-round |
| Indonesia | Date to be confirmed | Year-round |
| India | Date to be confirmed | Year-round |
| Japan | Date to be confirmed | Year-round |
| Taiwan | Date to be confirmed | Year-round |
Say what is wrong and what is correct — a source link helps.
Near you
Nothing here yet.
Events
Nothing here yet.
Now
People are talking about this
Loading the room…
The discussion room could not load right now
Please try again later. Static content is not affected.
How the world celebrates
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
How does Brazil mark What voting asks of you, country by country?
Brazil is the only one of these seven markets where voting is a duty: Article 14 §1 of the constitution makes electoral registration and voting compulsory for those over eighteen, and optional for the illiterate, for those over seventy, and for sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds. Missing it means filing a justification within the legal window or paying a fine; otherwise a passport application, a public-service examination or certain certificates get stuck. Clause §2 adds that foreigners — and conscripts during compulsory military service — may not register as electors. The date is likewise nobody's choice: Article 1 of Law 9,504 of 1997 sets every election in the country on the first Sunday of October of the relevant year, with president, governors, senators and federal and state deputies all voted on the same day. Voting is on a Sunday, on electronic machines, and the result lands that night.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
How does China mark What voting asks of you, country by country?
China's constitution sets a low threshold in Article 34: every citizen who has reached eighteen has the right to vote and to be elected, irrespective of ethnicity, race, sex, occupation, family background, religion, education, property or length of residence — that last clause is precisely the mirror image of Taiwan's four months and Japan's three. The real dividing line is Article 97: deputies to the people's congresses of counties, cities not divided into districts, municipal districts, townships and towns are elected directly by the voters, while deputies at the provincial level and in cities divided into districts are elected by the people's congress one level below. A voter's ballot therefore reaches the county and township tier directly; everything above that is chosen indirectly, one rung at a time.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
How does Indonesia mark What voting asks of you, country by country?
Indonesia writes the specification of its elections into the constitution itself: Article 22E(1) of the 1945 constitution provides that elections shall be held once every five years, directly, generally, freely, secretly, honestly and fairly. That string of adjectives has a name in Indonesia — luber jurdil — and it is something schoolchildren can recite, not legal decoration. Clause (2) then lists what is being chosen: the House of Representatives, the Regional Representative Council, the president and vice-president, and the regional legislatures. Locking both the cycle and the principles into the constitution is what most distinguishes Indonesia here: when the election happens is not something an incumbent decides, because the number five sits in the highest law there is. The stages and the actual dates are announced by the electoral commission, and the country votes on a single day.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
How does India mark What voting asks of you, country by country?
Article 326 of the Indian constitution builds elections to the House of the People and to every state legislative assembly on adult suffrage: any citizen of India who is not less than eighteen years of age on the qualifying date, and who is not disqualified for non-residence, unsoundness of mind, crime or corrupt practice, is entitled to be registered as a voter. Written in 1949, that was an unusual sentence — several older democracies still filtered their electorates by property or literacy, and India put the threshold on age alone from the very beginning. In practice this makes the administrative task enormous: the Election Commission has to carry a polling station into every corner of the country, and marks each voter's finger with indelible ink — a violet line you see everywhere for days after a poll.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
How does Japan mark What voting asks of you, country by country?
Japan gives the vote at eighteen — the line has stood there since the reduction in 2016 — and the Ministry of Internal Affairs adds that to vote in a prefectural or municipal election you must also have lived in that municipality for three continuous months. National elections carry no such residence requirement, so the same voter faces different conditions depending on which election it is. Polling stations open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. as a rule; only in special circumstances may a municipal election commission move those hours, and the closing time may only be brought forward. Election day is conventionally a Sunday, and because early voting is available, many people never vote on the day itself. Counting starts that evening and the shape of the result is usually clear by the small hours.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
How does Taiwan mark What voting asks of you, country by country?
The voting age in Taiwan is twenty — Article 14 of the Public Officials Election and Recall Act says "having reached the full age of twenty", two years later than most countries — and Article 15 adds a requirement of four continuous months of residence in the constituency. What really shapes the day, though, is Article 17: an elector shall vote at the polling station of the place of household registration. Taiwan has no absentee ballot and no postal vote, so anyone working or studying in another city has to travel back. Before a general election the high-speed rail and intercity coaches sell out, the motorways jam the night before, and election day itself becomes an island-wide homecoming. Inside the station you collect your ballot against your national ID card and mark it yourself (Article 18); in the afternoon each station counts aloud in the open, and anyone may stand and watch.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
How does United States mark What voting asks of you, country by country?
Election day in the United States is not a policy someone chose but a sentence of statute: 2 U.S.C. §7 fixes it as “the Tuesday next after the 1st Monday in November” of every even-numbered year for elections to the House. The phrasing is awkward, but it guarantees the date always falls between 2 and 8 November — and that it is always a working day. The federal government has not made it a holiday; whether an employer must give paid time to vote is left to each state. Almost everything else is left there too: how many days of early voting, whether a postal ballot needs an excuse, whether identification is required, when registration closes. So “how do you vote in America” has no national answer, only fifty-odd answers running in parallel — and you swap one for another by crossing a state line.
Sources and dates
Dates follow local time zones, calendars, and official notices. Check the source when a date is estimated or locally variable.