Frequently Asked Questions

After voting, your ballot is scanned and placed in a secure box. Teams of poll workers then take those boxes and safely transport them to various satellite locations. All physical ballots are unfolded and scanned for damage; "damaged" ballots are duplicated onto a clean ballot. For mail-in ballots, election officials make sure the person is registered to vote, has not already voted, and has a non-damaged envelope. After all of the ballots are counted, a governing board has to certify the election to make it "official".

Given that 2025 is an odd-numbered year, there are not many elections. However, three US House special elections will take place to fill vacancies in Florida and New York. New Jersey and Virginia also have gubernatorial elections. There are also state Supreme Court elections in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

The Electoral College consists of 538 voters, called "electors", who vote for a candidate based on who won their state. Each state has the same number of electors as members of Congress (two U.S. Senators plus their number of U.S. House members). Washington, D.C. has 3 electoral votes. Most states use a "winner-take-all" system, where the candidate that wins the popular vote wins all of their electoral votes. However, Maine and Nebraska use a "proportional representation" system, where each of their Congressional districts get an electoral vote. The elector role is largely ceremonial and chosen by the state's leading political party. Sometimes, electors will vote for a candidate who did not win in their state. They are called "faithless electors". Some states have laws preventing these electors from being faithless.

There are 4 Constitutional Amendments on voting: the 15th in 1870, which gave African-American men the right to vote; the 19th in 1920, which gave women the right to vote; the 24th in 1964, which abolished the poll tax, which was used to disenfranchise African-Americans from voting; and finally, the 26th in 1971, which lowered the voting age to 18.

All bills start as ideas, which come from regular citizens. In the House, legislation is handed to a clerk. In the Senate, a prospective bill must gain the approval of the presiding officer, who is the person in charge of maintaining decorum. The bill is then referred to a specific committee, which is a group of legislators in specific areas, like oversight or energy. Bills are put on a calendar. In the House, debate is time-limited, while in the Senate, members can filibuster, which is an attempt to defeat a bill by "talking it to death". The bill is then voted on; if it gets 218 House votes and 51 Senate votes, it passes (50 votes would work in the Senate because the Vice President can cast a tie-breaking vote). The President then votes on the bill. If they approve it, it is enacted. If they veto it, it goes back to Congress, who can override the veto with 2/3rds of the vote.

An executive order is a written and signed order by the President that manages operations of the government. They do not create laws, they merely explain how to operate under them. Article II of the Constitution grants the President the right to give a "grant of executive power".