Summary. Three roles — voter, candidate, observer — with the deadlines that decide each.

1. Every January (four minutes)

  • Look up your registration on the state portal. Confirm active status.
  • Verify address, name, and party affiliation.
  • Repeat for every adult in the household.
  • If you moved, update immediately — precinct and local races change.
  • If your name or signature changed, update the signature on file.
  • Note whether your state has closed primaries and whether your affiliation is correct.

2. Write down your four dates

  • Registration deadline (same day to 30 days before).
  • Absentee/mail ballot request deadline.
  • Absentee/mail ballot return deadline — receipt or postmark? Critical.
  • Cure deadline for a rejected mail ballot.
  • Also note: early voting period, and polling place (it changes).

3. Voting by mail without being rejected

  • Request early.
  • Read the instruction sheet before marking anything, and again before sealing.
  • Use the secrecy envelope if required.
  • Sign where indicated, the way you normally sign.
  • Obtain the witness signature or notarization if required.
  • Complete the date field.
  • Return two weeks early, or use an official drop location.
  • Track the ballot.
  • If a defect appears, cure it the day you learn of it.

4. At the polls

  • Confirm you are at the right polling place before anything else.
  • "Not on the list" → ask for a provisional ballot; cast it; keep the receipt.
  • Identification refused → ask what is acceptable and what alternatives exist (affidavit, signature comparison, later showing); take a provisional ballot as a fallback.
  • Signature challenged → ask for the cure process and deadline; take a provisional ballot.
  • Challenged by a partisan observer → ask the ground, who is challenging, and the resolution process.
  • Machines down → ask for an emergency paper ballot. Do not leave.
  • Need assistance → you may generally bring a person of your choice (not your employer or union agent).
  • In line at closing time = you vote. Stay in line; tell others.
  • Get the poll worker's name and note the time for any incident.
  • Call a nonpartisan election protection hotline.

5. After voting

  • Confirm your mail or provisional ballot was counted.
  • If rejected, find out why and whether a cure is still possible.
  • If you had a problem, report it to the county and to an election protection organization — patterns drive fixes.

6. Serving as a poll worker

  • Apply in the spring for a fall election.
  • Complete the training; get the procedures manual.
  • Learn the provisional ballot rule cold.
  • Learn exactly what identification is acceptable and every alternative.
  • Know how to reach the county for a ruling — call rather than improvise.
  • Know the closing-time rule.
  • Be scrupulously neutral in dress, speech, and demeanor.
  • Consider bilingual, early voting, or mail ballot board roles.

7. Candidate: before filing

  • Get this cycle's candidate handbook from the county or state.
  • Verify every qualification: age, citizenship, residency with exact dates, registration status, absence of disqualifying convictions.
  • Confirm the filing window dates and the required documents.
  • Resolve anything embarrassing in your record on your own terms.
  • Attend meetings of the body and read a year of minutes.

8. Candidate: petitions

  • Target two to three times the required signatures.
  • Train circulators on the affidavit — a defect can invalidate the whole sheet.
  • Validate signatures weekly against the voter file.
  • Check registration status, correct district, complete addresses, dates within the window.
  • Watch geographic distribution requirements.
  • Organize sheets by circulator; copy everything before filing.
  • Prepare for a challenge: originals, validation records, circulators available.
  • File early in the window, not on the last day.

9. Candidate: committee and money

  • Register the committee before the first dollar.
  • Open a separate bank account; never commingle.
  • Appoint a treasurer who will do the reports; understand personal liability.
  • Record for every contribution: name, address, date, amount, and occupation and employer above the threshold.
  • Know contribution limits by source and recipient.
  • Know prohibited sources: corporations where prohibited, foreign nationals, contributions in the name of another.
  • Refund or reattribute excessive contributions within the permitted period.
  • Calendar every report, including pre-election, post-election, and 24/48-hour reports.
  • Disclaimers on everything — mail, signs, digital, audio, text.
  • No personal use — the test is whether the expense would exist irrespective of the campaign.

10. Candidate: the coordination firewall

  • No discussion with an independent committee about plans, strategy, timing, targeting, or content.
  • Do not share vendors without advice and a documented firewall.
  • Be careful with former staff who move to an independent group.
  • Document the firewall.
  • When in doubt, do not.

11. Campaign speech

  • Verify factual claims about opponents; keep the documentation.
  • Distinguish opinion from factual assertion.
  • Never misstate the time, place, or manner of voting, or a voter's eligibility.
  • License photographs, music, and video.
  • Do not use public resources — time, equipment, facilities, accounts — for campaign work.

12. Close elections: recount

  • Know the automatic recount threshold and the requested recount deadline and deposit.
  • Recruit and train observers in advance.
  • Bring counsel who has done one.
  • Watch: seals, chain-of-custody logs, ballot retrieval, duplication of damaged ballots.
  • Preserve objections on the record, identifying the specific ballot.
  • Confirm voter-intent standards are applied uniformly.
  • Track the running tally independently.

13. Close elections: contest

  • Note the deadline — days from certification, and jurisdictional.
  • Understand the burden: enough identified ballots to change the result.
  • Assemble evidence before filing: named ineligible voters, identified uncounted legal ballots, documented custody failures, admitted tabulation errors.
  • Do not rely on statistical anomalies or generalized affidavits.
  • Understand the narrow remedies available.
  • Note that claims that could have been brought before the election are disfavored after it.

14. After winning

  • Close or maintain the committee per the rules; file final reports; resolve debt; dispose of surplus lawfully.
  • File officeholder financial disclosure and conflict statements.
  • Complete required training: open meetings, public records, ethics.
  • Learn the open meetings law — a quorum discussing business by email or text can violate it.
  • Assume every message about public business is a public record.
  • Learn the conflict and recusal rules; disclose on the record.
  • Keep campaign and public resources completely separate.

15. Redistricting years

  • Watch for state and local hearings — county, city, school board, special districts.
  • Testify about communities of interest, specifically: shared institutions, services, and organizing history.
  • Submit a map using free public mapping tools.
  • Track the compressed timeline — comment windows are weeks.

Related documents

Educational only, not legal advice. Election law is state and local law; deadlines are extremely short and change between cycles. Verify with your state and county election authority.