Voting and Elections Trivia
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100 free Voting and Elections trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Americans vote on a Tuesday because of church, mud and market day. The secret ballot is named after Australia, the word gerrymander after a Massachusetts governor and a salamander, and ostracism after broken pottery. New Zealand let all women vote in 1893; France waited until 1944; Saudi Arabia until 2015. These 100 questions are built for civics classes and election-night parties alike: how many electors there are and how many you need, which two states split them, why 1845 matters, the four suffrage amendments and what each did, Seneca Falls, Wyoming and Tennessee's 50-49 vote, Kate Sheppard, the Voting Rights Act and Shelby County, the first city with a secret ballot, Belgium and Australia's compulsory voting, packing and cracking, Iowa, Super Tuesday, swing states, exit polls, the long ballot and the Landsgemeinde. Easy questions ask what a midterm is; hard ones ask which country votes at 25. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a government class.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many electors are in the US Electoral College?
538
435 representatives plus 100 senators plus three for Washington, D.C.
Q 02How many electoral votes does a US presidential candidate need to win outright?
270
Without a majority, the House of Representatives chooses the president under the Twelfth Amendment.
Q 03Which two states split their electoral votes by congressional district instead of winner-take-all?
Maine and Nebraska
Maine has done so since 1972 and Nebraska since 1992.
Q 04Which state has the most electoral votes?
California
It has 54; Texas has 40, Florida 30 and New York 28.
Q 05Which amendment gave Washington, D.C. its three electoral votes?
Twenty-third
It was ratified in 1961; the district gets no more electors than the least populous state.
Q 06What is a member of the Electoral College who votes against their pledged candidate called?
Faithless elector
Thirty-three states plus D.C. have laws against them, first enforced after 2016.
Q 07US federal Election Day is defined as the Tuesday after the first what in November?
Monday
The rule pins it between November 2 and 8; November 1 was avoided as All Saints' Day.
Q 08Why was Tuesday originally chosen for US elections?
So farmers could attend church Sunday and travel Monday
Wednesday was market day, so voting had to be done before then.
Q 09In what year did Congress set a uniform national date for choosing presidential electors?
1845
The new telegraph meant results in one state could influence another.
Q 10Elections held two years after a US presidential election are called what?
Midterms
All House seats and a third of the Senate are contested.
Q 11US senators serve terms of how many years?
Six
Terms are staggered so a third of the Senate is elected at each general election.
Q 12Which amendment recognised American women's right to vote?
Nineteenth
Congress passed it in 1919 and Tennessee provided the decisive 36th ratification in August 1920.
Q 13Which state cast the decisive 36th ratification of women's suffrage in 1920?
Tennessee
It passed the state House by 50 votes to 49 on August 18.
Q 14The 1848 convention that first called for women's suffrage in the US was held where?
Q 21Which president signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965?
Lyndon B. Johnson
The Justice Department calls it the most effective civil rights law ever enacted.
Q 22Which 2013 Supreme Court case struck down the Voting Rights Act's preclearance formula?
Shelby County v. Holder
Brnovich v. DNC in 2021 further weakened Section 2.
Q 23Which amendment banned poll taxes in US federal elections in 1964?
Twenty-fourth
Five states still had a poll tax at the time: Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia.
Seneca Falls, New York
Its Declaration of Sentiments demanded equality between the sexes.
Q 15Which was the first US state, on becoming a state in 1890, to have full women's suffrage?
Wyoming
Colorado gave women school-board votes in 1893 and Idaho full suffrage in 1896.
Q 16Which country was the first to give all women the vote in national elections, in 1893?
New Zealand
The campaign was led by Kate Sheppard; the final petition carried nearly 32,000 signatures.
Q 17Who led the campaign that made that first country enfranchise women in 1893?
Kate Sheppard
Elizabeth Yates became mayor of Onehunga the same year, a first in the British Empire.
Q 18In which year could women in France first vote?
1944
The UK reached equal suffrage in 1928 and the US in 1920.
Q 19Which country granted women the vote for the first time in its 2015 local elections?
Saudi Arabia
Bhutan's women first voted in its 2008 national elections.
Q 20The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, barred denying the vote on account of what?
Race, color or past servitude
It was the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments.
Q 24What did the Twenty-sixth Amendment do in 1971?
Lowered the voting age to 18
Its slogan: 'Old enough to fight, old enough to vote', from the Vietnam draft.
Q 25What was the US voting age before the Twenty-sixth Amendment?
21
Young men could be drafted at 18 but had no say in the war until 21.
Q 26Which country was the first to let 16- and 17-year-olds vote in national elections, in 2007?
Austria
Brazil had set 16 in its 1988 constitution; Austria's teens first voted nationally at the 2009 European election.
Q 27Which is the only country with a voting age of 25?
United Arab Emirates
Most nations use 18; a few go as low as 16.
Q 28Anonymous voting on paper slips in a sealed box is nicknamed after which country?
Australia
Tasmania appears to have used it first, on 7 February 1856.
Q 29Which was the first US city to adopt the Australian-style anonymous vote?
Louisville, Kentucky
It was drafted by Lewis Dembitz, uncle of future justice Louis Brandeis.
Q 30Which country has the oldest surviving compulsory voting law, from 1893?
Belgium
Women were included from 1948; Australia made voting compulsory in 1924.