U.S. Government Practice Test: Elections and Voting

A candidate needs a majority of the 538 electoral votes, which is 270. With 269 votes each, two candidates would be tied, and 218 is a majority of the 435-member House.

Each state gets as many electors as it has members of Congress: House seats plus two senators. Washington, D.C. receives three electors under the 23rd Amendment.

Under the 12th Amendment, the House picks the President from the top three candidates, and each state delegation casts one vote. The Senate chooses the Vice President in that situation.

The 26th Amendment (1971) set the voting age at 18, partly because 18-year-olds were being drafted for the Vietnam War. The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote.

The 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920 after decades of work by the suffrage movement. In 1870 the 15th Amendment barred denying the vote on account of race.

In a primary, voters pick the candidates who will represent a party in the general election. A vote to remove an official is a recall, and a vote on a proposed law is an initiative or referendum.

Federal law sets Election Day as the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, so it always falls between November 2 and November 8.

Midterms come halfway through a presidential term. Every House seat is up every two years, while senators serve staggered six-year terms, so about one-third of the Senate is elected each cycle.

Gerrymandering is drawing district boundaries to favor a party or group. Apportionment is the separate step of dividing House seats among the states after the census.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed literacy tests and led to a large rise in Black voter registration in the South. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 dealt with discrimination in housing.