Mechanics of federal government: appropriations, nominations, ethics rules, administrative procedure, shutdown deadlines and each branch's oversight tools.
Congressional and legislative maps are redrawn on the census clock — data in year one, maps in years one through three — but nothing in federal law stops a state from redrawing mid-decade, as 2025 demonstrated.
The federal fallback ballot created in 2002 counts only after election officials verify the voter's eligibility and place the ballot in the right jurisdiction — and most rejections come from the jurisdiction test, not fraud.
Roughly 800,000 poll workers staff American elections, most are temporary hires in their sixties, and every jurisdiction runs its own recruitment pipeline against a recurring shortage.
Election night is media projection; certification is law, and it runs on state canvass deadlines, a federal certificate clock, and a joint session of Congress in January.
State legislatures write primary dates into statute, parties run caucuses and set delegate rules, and the interaction of the two — plus New Hampshire's state law — produces the calendar shuffle every cycle.
There is no federal rule restoring voting rights after a felony — every state writes its own, and the approaches run from voting from prison to lifetime disenfranchisement for select offenses.