Congressional elections
The United States Congress has two chambers: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Elections to Congress take place every two years. Election of senators and representatives takes place at the state level.
The Senate
"The Senate has 100 members, elected for a six year term in dual-seat constituencies (two from each state), with one-third being renewed every two years. The group of the Senate seats ... up for election during a given year is known as a "class"; the three classes are staggered so that only one of the three groups is renewed every two years. Until the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913, [s]enators were elected by state legislatures, not the electorate of states" (Wikipedia, 2012, par. 19).
The House of Representatives
The House of Representatives has 435 members. House elections occur every two years "on the first Tuesday after November 1 in even years," sometimes midway through a president's term and sometimes correlated with a presidential election (Wikipedia, par. 20-1).
State and local elections
Although each state elects governors and lieutenant governors, other offices may vary as to whether they are elected or not, as provided for in state laws and constitutions. For example, in 2012 in the state of Florida, the following offices were up for election: state senator (dependent upon redistricting); state representative (all 67 districts); the offices of state attorney and public defender in Circuits 1-19; justices of the Supreme Court, judges of the District Court of Appeals, and circuit and county court judges if their terms expired in January 2013; county commissioners; and school board members (Florida Division of Elections, n.d.).
Other local offices may vary by district. For example, in Florida's St. Johns County, a mosquito-control board election was held. Other elected offices in Florida include three state-level cabinet positions: the Commissioner of Agriculture, the Attorney General, and the Chief Financial Officer (Cabinet Process, n.d., par. 3). In other states, judges and cabinet members may be appointees.
The Voters
To vote in any election held in the U.S., a voter must be a United States citizen and at least 18 years of age. Different states have different residency requirements; for example, in Alaska, you "are a resident for voting purposes if you are in Alaska with the intent to remain there and have the intent to return when you leave, and are not registered to vote in another state or are willing to cancel that registration," while in Florida, "[a]n individual has established legal residency for voter registration purposes when he/she physically moves to the county with the intent of making that county his/her permanent home" (National Association of Secretaries of State, 2008).
Since the first presidential election in 1789, when voting rights were limited to the small pool of property-owning citizens who existed at the time, various groups who were once excluded now have full rights to participate in the electoral process. During various periods of history, the right to vote has contracted, such as the post-Civil War Jim Crow era; in other eras, it has expanded.
See the following timeline for a glimpse of how voting rights have expanded and sometimes contracted in the past 223 years.
