A User's Guide to U.S. Elections

What are general elections and when do they happen?

Every even year in the U.S., we have a general election. Congressional elections take place every two years, but state and local elections happen annually. These general elections take place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

You might be surprised to know that the election date isn't actually mandated by the U.S. Constitution. Instead, it was the day picked by Congress in 1845 for presidential elections. And then elections for representatives in the House followed suit to make it the same day in 1872.

You might be surprised to know that the date for general elections isn't actually mandated by the U.S. Constitution.

But why Tuesday? Well, some people had to travel quite a bit to cast their votes and they didn't want voting in elections to interfere with religious services on Sunday. And why the first Tuesday after the first Monday? That was to avoid having elections fall on the first of the month because lots of merchants and landlords were tallying up their books on that day.

Elections for the federal government

Every two years in the general election, we fill whatever seats are open in the federal government. We just don't fill all of them at the same time. Here's how it works.

House of Representatives

Each member of the House of Representatives (yes, all 435 of them!) is up for election every two years.

Senate

Senators have six-year terms. Their elections are staggered. When they're elected, every senator is assigned to a class: one, two, or three. So, elections are held every two years for one-third of the Senate seats. (Senators in class two are up for election in November 2020.)

The president

Every four years, the president is up for election. And given all the campaigning and the activity in the news, it's hard not to notice!

When the president is up for election, we call that (surprise!) a presidential election. And when the president is not up for election, it's called a midterm election.

Other types of elections

It's worth mentioning primaries and caucuses. These are the elections before the general elections where we choose who we're going to have on the ballot in November.

Presidential primaries are run by each U.S. state. Caucuses (which are rarer these days) are run by the political party.

Lots of states have closed primaries—you can only vote in them if you're a registered member of the party. And some have open primaries, where anyone can vote, but you can only vote in one party primary. Other States have what's called a nonpartisan blanket...

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