Topic: What voting asks of you, country by country
How does United States mark What voting asks of you, country by country?
Everyday topic
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.
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.