Topic: What voting asks of you, country by country
How does India mark What voting asks of you, country by country?
Everyday topic
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.
What is this topic?
Article 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.
Sources and dates
Dates follow local time zones, calendars, and official notices. Check the source when a date is estimated or locally variable.