
Election day or polling day is the day on which
general election
A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...
s are held. In many countries, general elections are always held on a Saturday or Sunday, to enable as many
voters as possible to participate; while in other countries elections are always held on a
weekday. However, some countries, or regions within a country, which hold elections on a weekday declare election day a
public holiday
A public holiday, national holiday, federal holiday, statutory holiday, bank holiday or legal holiday is a holiday generally established by law and is usually a non-working day during the year.
Types
Civic holiday
A ''civic holiday'', also k ...
. Countries which permit
absentee ballots, early ballots or
postal votes to be cast by mail before the election avoid the problem altogether by enabling voters to vote on a day that is more convenient to them.
Sundays are the most common day for elections, but this is less true in the
Anglosphere
The Anglosphere, also known as the Anglo-American world, is a Western-led sphere of influence among the Anglophone countries. The core group of this sphere of influence comprises five developed countries that maintain close social, cultura ...
; Saturdays are used in New Zealand and Australia, and weekdays for the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. This is partially due to the influence of Protestantism, which historically set restrictions on activities other than church-going during the
Sabbath
In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, Ten Commandments, commanded by God to be kept as a Holid ...
(usually considered as falling on a Sunday).
An election day usually culminates in an election night when the results of the election are tallied and winners are announced.
Election day by country/territory
Other bodies
Elections to the European Parliament
Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's.
Until 2019, 751 ...
take place over a period of four days (i.e., Thursday through to Sunday), according to the election days of the EU members states (as listed above). There are some exceptions; as Wednesday was not covered by the available dates, the Netherlands holds elections on Thursday, while Denmark holds elections on Sunday. Countries that hold the ballot before Sunday are not permitted to announce results until all other countries have finished voting.
See also
*
Early voting
Early voting, also called advance polling or pre-poll voting, is a convenience voting process by which voters in a public election can vote before a scheduled Election Day (politics), election day. Early voting can take place remotely, such as v ...
*
Election silence
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Election Day (Politics)
Elections
Time in government