What Early Voting and Mail Ballots Have in Common
Both systems move the moment of voting weeks before Election Day, and both lean on the same chain of custody to keep the count honest.
Elections
Government explains how the federal system operates day to day: appropriations and continuing resolutions, nominations and confirmations, ethics and disclosure rules, administrative procedure and inter-branch oversight. Pieces define the terms and cite governing authority. Useful for students, new staff, journalists and anyone needing procedure explained without partisanship.
Mechanics of federal government: appropriations, nominations, ethics rules, administrative procedure, shutdown deadlines and each branch's oversight tools.
How Does the Electoral College Work? Electors, 270 and the Popular-Vote Gap
The president is not chosen by the national popular vote but by 538 electors, and the rules that produce that number explain most of what confuses voters.
How a Continuing Resolution Actually Keeps the Government Open
The CR is a stopgap that freezes last year's budget in place — and its fine print, not the headline date, decides what agencies can and cannot do.
How the Congressional Review Act Makes a Repeal Permanent
The statute's power is not the sixty-day clock but the clause barring an agency from ever writing the rule again.
Risk-Limiting Audits: The Statistical Check on Election Results
A risk-limiting audit hand-examines a random sample of ballots large enough that, if the reported outcome is wrong, the audit has a known maximum chance of failing to catch it — the only post-election audit with a statistical guarantee attached.
Redistricting After the Census: Who Draws the Lines and When
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.