100 Fun Facts About Voting and Elections

How many electors are in the US Electoral College?

435 representatives plus 100 senators plus three for Washington, D.C.

How many electoral votes does a US presidential candidate need to win outright?

Without a majority, the House of Representatives chooses the president under the Twelfth Amendment.

Which two states split their electoral votes by congressional district instead of winner-take-all?

Maine has done so since 1972 and Nebraska since 1992.

Which state has the most electoral votes?

It has 54; Texas has 40, Florida 30 and New York 28.

Which amendment gave Washington, D.C. its three electoral votes?

It was ratified in 1961; the district gets no more electors than the least populous state.

What is a member of the Electoral College who votes against their pledged candidate called?

Thirty-three states plus D.C. have laws against them, first enforced after 2016.

US federal Election Day is defined as the Tuesday after the first what in November?

The rule pins it between November 2 and 8; November 1 was avoided as All Saints' Day.

Why was Tuesday originally chosen for US elections?

Wednesday was market day, so voting had to be done before then.

In what year did Congress set a uniform national date for choosing presidential electors?

The new telegraph meant results in one state could influence another.

Elections held two years after a US presidential election are called what?

All House seats and a third of the Senate are contested.

US senators serve terms of how many years?

Terms are staggered so a third of the Senate is elected at each general election.

Which amendment recognised American women's right to vote?

Congress passed it in 1919 and Tennessee provided the decisive 36th ratification in August 1920.

Which state cast the decisive 36th ratification of women's suffrage in 1920?

It passed the state House by 50 votes to 49 on August 18.

The 1848 convention that first called for women's suffrage in the US was held where?

Its Declaration of Sentiments demanded equality between the sexes.

Which was the first US state, on becoming a state in 1890, to have full women's suffrage?

Colorado gave women school-board votes in 1893 and Idaho full suffrage in 1896.

Which country was the first to give all women the vote in national elections, in 1893?

The campaign was led by Kate Sheppard; the final petition carried nearly 32,000 signatures.

Who led the campaign that made that first country enfranchise women in 1893?

Elizabeth Yates became mayor of Onehunga the same year, a first in the British Empire.

In which year could women in France first vote?

The UK reached equal suffrage in 1928 and the US in 1920.

Which country granted women the vote for the first time in its 2015 local elections?

Bhutan's women first voted in its 2008 national elections.

The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, barred denying the vote on account of what?

It was the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments.

Which president signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965?

The Justice Department calls it the most effective civil rights law ever enacted.

Which 2013 Supreme Court case struck down the Voting Rights Act's preclearance formula?

Brnovich v. DNC in 2021 further weakened Section 2.

Which amendment banned poll taxes in US federal elections in 1964?

Five states still had a poll tax at the time: Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia.

What did the Twenty-sixth Amendment do in 1971?

Its slogan: 'Old enough to fight, old enough to vote', from the Vietnam draft.

What was the US voting age before the Twenty-sixth Amendment?

Young men could be drafted at 18 but had no say in the war until 21.

Which country was the first to let 16- and 17-year-olds vote in national elections, in 2007?

Brazil had set 16 in its 1988 constitution; Austria's teens first voted nationally at the 2009 European election.

Which is the only country with a voting age of 25?

Most nations use 18; a few go as low as 16.

Anonymous voting on paper slips in a sealed box is nicknamed after which country?

Tasmania appears to have used it first, on 7 February 1856.

Which was the first US city to adopt the Australian-style anonymous vote?

It was drafted by Lewis Dembitz, uncle of future justice Louis Brandeis.

Which country has the oldest surviving compulsory voting law, from 1893?

Women were included from 1948; Australia made voting compulsory in 1924.

In which year did the country that gave the secret ballot its nickname make voting compulsory?

Turnout before that ran between 47 and 78 percent of eligible voters.

As of 2026, roughly how many countries have compulsory voting laws?

Enforcement varies from severe penalties to none at all.

The word 'gerrymander' combines salamander with the name of which politician?

As Massachusetts governor in 1812 he signed a bill creating a salamander-shaped district near Boston.

In gerrymandering, what is 'packing'?

'Cracking' is the opposite tactic of diluting them across districts.

The word gerrymander first appeared in print in which newspaper in 1812?

The famous cartoon was most likely drawn by engraver Elkanah Tisdale.

Which state traditionally holds the first major contest of the US presidential primary season?

Its caucuses are party meetings rather than state-run primaries.

What is 'Super Tuesday'?

Roughly a third of all convention delegates can be won that day.

A 'Super Tuesday' of Southern primaries was organised in which year to boost the region's clout?

Alabama, Florida and Georgia picked the second Tuesday of March and lobbied others to join.

What is a US state that could reasonably be won by either major party called?

Also known as a battleground, toss-up or purple state.

What is a survey of voters taken as they leave the polling station called?

Dutch sociologist Marcel van Dam claims to have run the first in February 1967.

In ancient Athens, citizens voted to banish a person for ten years using what?

The shards were called ostraka, which gives us the word ostracism.

For how many years was an ostracised Athenian banished?

He had ten days to leave; returning early meant death, but his property was kept.

Which slogan is most associated with universal suffrage?

The right to vote is 'active suffrage'; the right to be elected is 'passive suffrage'.

What name is given to a US voting sheet listing dozens of contests at once?

Voters sometimes face as many as 37 separate contests on one sheet.

Which five US states elect their governors in odd-numbered years?

Everyone else votes for governor in even-numbered years, mostly at the midterms.

Which Swiss institution still votes publicly by show of hands in open-air assemblies?

Public voting lets every citizen observe the outcome.

What is the argument that a rational voter's costs exceed their expected benefits called?

Supporters of compulsory voting say it solves this for disadvantaged voters.

How many times has the US Constitution's Electoral College abolition passed the House?

That 1969 amendment died in the Senate; more amendments target the Electoral College than any other part.

As of 2026, how many states plus D.C. have joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact?

Together they hold 222 electors, 82 percent of the 270 needed for it to take effect.

Voting by shouting aye or no rather than by ballot is called what?

Voting can also be done by raised hands or by moving to one side of a room.

Which newspaper's famously wrong 1948 front page declared Thomas Dewey the victor over Harry Truman?

Chicago Tribune printers were on strike, so the paper went to press hours early on a pundit's forecast. About 150,000 copies ran before the fix, and Truman held one up for photographers.

Which future president's campaign treated 391 voters to 160 gallons of alcohol in a 1758 colonial election?

George Washington was following a custom so routine it had a name, swilling the planters with bumbo, after a drink of rum, sugar and nutmeg.

Stubbs, honorary mayor of the Alaskan town of Talkeetna from 1997 to 2017, was what kind of animal?

Cat: Stubbs took the title as a kitten and drew dozens of tourists a day. The tale that he won as a write-in is a myth, since tiny Talkeetna has no real mayor and held no election.

Which US state passed a 1997 law letting NASA astronauts cast ballots electronically from orbit?

Texas acted because most astronauts live and vote near Houston, and one had been unable to vote from the Mir station in 1996. David Wolf cast the first ballot from space the next year.

Which 1860 presidential candidate grew a beard after an 11-year-old girl said it would win votes?

Abraham Lincoln took Grace Bedell's advice, then met her on his inaugural journey in February 1861 to show off the new whiskers.

Which film star became a US governor in 2003 after voters recalled the sitting Democrat, Gray Davis?

Arnold Schwarzenegger beat a field of 135 replacement candidates, in only the second recall of a governor in American history.

Florida's 'hanging chads' in the 2000 presidential recount came from which kind of voting equipment?

Punch-card machines left a chad clinging to the card when a hole was not punched cleanly through, and the tabulators did not count those votes. The fiasco hastened the end of punch-card voting.

Which country ran a 2009 polling station in Gir Forest for just one voter, a temple priest?

India opened more than 800,000 polling stations that year to shorten voters' journeys, and officials singled this one out as the only booth in the country serving a single elector.

Which writer's mysterious 1849 death has been blamed on 'cooping', a violent form of election fraud?

Edgar Allan Poe was found on an election day in shabby clothes thought not to be his own. Cooping gangs drugged men and marched them between polls in disguise, though it is one theory among many.

Cacareco, who drew 100,000 protest votes in a 1959 São Paulo election, was what kind of zoo animal?

Rhinoceros: Cacareco out-polled every party in the race even though officials had refused her candidacy, and she later inspired Canada's satirical Rhinoceros Party.

What name is given to the locked meeting of cardinals that elects a new pope in the Sistine Chapel?

Conclave comes from the Latin for 'with a key'. The lock-in became church law after a papal election at Viterbo dragged on for nearly three years and townspeople tore the roof off the palace.

Which two nominees faced off in the first US presidential debates, a series of four TV encounters?

Kennedy and Nixon set no lasting trend at first: after their 1960 series, no presidential debate was held again until 1976.

What nickname describes an official still in office after a successor has already been elected?

Lame duck began as 18th-century London Stock Exchange slang for a broker who defaulted on his debts, long before it was applied to politicians on their way out.

Who tied Thomas Jefferson in the Electoral College in 1800, forcing the House to pick the president?

Aaron Burr was Jefferson's own running mate, but each won 73 electoral votes. The House needed 36 ballots to break the tie, and Hamilton's lobbying against Burr helped settle it.

Which US president won four straight elections, the only one ever to serve more than two terms?

Franklin Roosevelt won every presidential election from 1932 until he died early in his last term; a later amendment barred anyone from winning more than two.

Which country held its first election open to citizens of all races over four days in April 1994?

South Africa saw millions queue over the four days, the climax of a four-year process that dismantled apartheid and handed Nelson Mandela's ANC a landslide.

Who is the only US president never elected as either president or vice president?

Gerald Ford was appointed vice president in 1973, inherited the presidency the following year, and then narrowly lost the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter.

Which joke British party founded by Screaming Lord Sutch saw its pet passports policy become law?

Monster Raving Loony Party manifestos also called for all-day pub opening and scrapping dog licences, both of which happened, though its 99p coin is still waiting.

Which Hollywood star, elected mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea in 1986, made street ice cream legal there?

Clint Eastwood served a single two-year term and gave his $200 monthly salary to the town's youth centre.

Which Harper's Weekly cartoonist is credited with first depicting the Republican Party as an elephant?

Thomas Nast also popularised the Democratic donkey and, in 1863, drew what is generally recognised as the first modern Santa Claus.

Which capital elected comedian Jón Gnarr mayor in 2010 after his satirical Best Party topped the poll?

Reykjavík's voters gave the Best Party six of the fifteen council seats; Gnarr had founded it months earlier as pure satire, with people who had no background in politics.

Which West African country introduced voting by marble in the 1960s, each drop into a drum ringing a bell?

The Gambia brought in marbles so voters who could not read could take part: each candidate gets a drum in party colours bearing a portrait, and a bell confirms each vote as the marble drops.

Which northern European country was the first to let voters cast ballots online in a national parliamentary election?

Estonia tried internet voting in local elections in 2005 and used it for parliament in 2007; by 2023 more than half of all votes there were cast online.

In which country do voters handwrite a candidate's or party's name on a blank ballot paper?

Japan's voters write the name out themselves in national and most local elections, and for the House of Representatives they fill in two slips, one for a candidate and one for a party.

Which US state has listed 'None of These Candidates' as a choice on statewide ballots since 1975?

Nevada's protest line cannot actually win: when it has topped a contest, the best-placed real candidate has still been declared the winner.

Dixville Notch, a village famous for casting its presidential ballots at midnight, is in which US state?

New Hampshire made the hamlet its own precinct after a resident tired of a 45-minute drive to vote; its handful of electors have gathered at midnight since 1960.

Which state became the first in the US to run its elections entirely by mail after a 1998 ballot measure?

Oregon voters approved the change by more than two to one, through a citizens' initiative rather than an act of the legislature.

On which day of the week are British general elections held by long-standing convention?

Thursday is custom rather than law, and the timing is otherwise up to the prime minister, who may call a general election at any point within a five-year term.

In Canadian politics, what informal name is commonly used for an electoral district?

Riding is the everyday English term, while French speakers say comté; both echo the counties that electoral districts were organised around in the 1800s.

Which New York City political machine became a national byword for graft under William 'Boss' Tweed?

Tammany Hall began in the 1780s as a social club, and it was Tweed's 1873 conviction for embezzlement that fixed its reputation for corruption across the country.

Which billionaire won nearly 19 percent of the 1992 presidential vote as an independent candidate?

Ross Perot carried no states at all, yet it was the best showing by a candidate from outside the two main parties since 1912.

Which presidential candidate's enemies mocked him as a stubborn donkey, inspiring the Democratic mascot?

Andrew Jackson's foes twisted his surname into 'jackass', but Democrats liked the insult's common-man ring and kept the animal as their own.

Who in 1972 became the first Black candidate to seek a major party's US presidential nomination?

Shirley Chisholm had already made history four years earlier as the first Black woman elected to Congress, and her campaign won 28 delegates in the state contests.

Who became the first woman on a major-party US presidential ticket as Walter Mondale's 1984 running mate?

Geraldine Ferraro, a congresswoman from Queens and former prosecutor, was also the first widely recognised Italian American on a major-party national ticket.

Before the Seventeenth Amendment took effect in 1913, who chose members of the US Senate?

State legislatures sometimes deadlocked so badly over the choice that a state went without any senators, which, with bribery scandals, built the case for direct election.

The word 'candidate' comes from the Latin for which colour, worn by Romans seeking office?

White togas, chalked and bleached until they gleamed, marked out Roman office-seekers at speeches and debates; the Latin candidus means shining white.

What term describes a popular party leader pulling in votes for lesser candidates on the same ticket?

Coattail effect pictures lesser candidates carried into office on a winner's coat; a victorious president's party will often gain seats in Congress at the same election.

Vermin Supreme, the perennial US candidate who promises everyone a free pony, is known for wearing what as a hat?

A boot sits on his head on the campaign trail, alongside a giant toothbrush and a pledge to make brushing your teeth the law.

How did ancient Athens fill most of its public offices, including its council of 500?

By drawing lots, with purpose-built allotment machines called kleroteria, Athenians hoped to stop the wealthy from buying their way into office.

Who was the first US president to win two terms that were not back to back, in 1884 and 1892?

Grover Cleveland in fact won the popular vote three times running: in 1888 he lost only in the Electoral College, to Benjamin Harrison, and beat him in the rematch.

Which Democrat won a majority of the popular vote in 1876 but lost the presidency by one electoral vote?

Samuel Tilden is the only candidate ever to lose with an outright majority of the popular vote; a commission handed all 20 disputed electoral votes to Rutherford Hayes, 185 to 184.

Which 1844 winner, picked on his party's ninth convention ballot, is called the first 'dark horse' nominee?

James K. Polk broke the mould: every earlier president had been a vice president, a secretary of state or a senior general, and Whigs mocked him by pretending never to have heard of him.

Which Socialist ran for US president in 1920 from a federal prison cell, his fifth bid for the office?

Eugene V. Debs had been jailed over a speech denouncing American participation in the First World War, and still took 3.4 percent of the vote as a convict.

Who in 1954 became the first person ever elected to the US Senate as a write-in candidate?

Strom Thurmond organised the campaign after party leaders named a replacement nominee without a primary election, and he pledged to resign within two years to force one.

Which light-sensitive compound gives election ink the stain that marks a voter's finger for weeks?

Silver nitrate darkens the skin on exposure to ultraviolet light and cannot be washed off, fading only as the outer skin cells are replaced.

Which president's nickname 'Old Kinderhook' helped popularise the expression OK during his 1840 campaign?

Martin Van Buren was a native of Kinderhook, New York, and the nationwide publicity around the race spread the two letters across the country almost overnight.

The phrase 'smoke-filled room' arose from reports of a 1920 hotel meeting said to have picked which nominee?

Warren G. Harding was a relatively minor candidate until, legend has it, Republican power-brokers settled on him as a compromise in a private meeting at the Blackstone Hotel.

Psephology, the study of elections and voting, takes its name from the Greek word for which object?

Pebble is the root because ancient Greeks cast their votes with small stones; a British scholar coined the word in 1948 when a friend asked for a name for the study of elections.

Which state elected Mel Carnahan to the US Senate in 2000, three weeks after he died in a plane crash?

Missouri's voters chose their late governor over the sitting senator, John Ashcroft, and his widow, Jean Carnahan, was appointed to fill the seat.

Which candidate did the House choose as president in 1824, though a rival had won more electoral votes?

John Quincy Adams won on the first House ballot, in the only election where the candidate with the most electoral votes failed to become president.