Why vote on a Tuesday? What's with the elephant and the donkey? What happens if there's a tie? CNN takes on these common election questions, in case you need some distraction from the nail-biting race:
- Election Day: The archaic rule scheduling Election Day on a Tuesday in November dates back to the days when voters had to travel to the polls by horse and buggy. Weekly schedules were jam-packed, with worship on Sunday and markets open on Wednesday. That left Monday for travel and Tuesday for voting. November was ideal, since it's after the harvest but before the weather turns too cold for equine travel.
- Party Mascots: Romney supporters can thank an 1874 political cartoon for first depicting the GOP as an elephant. The Democrat donkey goes back even further, to when Andrew Jackson's critics called him a jackass. He latched on to the idea, and soon used it to depict the party as a whole.
- An Electoral Tie: In the event that Obama and Romney both get the same number of electoral votes, it will be up to the House of Representatives to pick the president. Republicans are expected to retain control of the House, so it's likely they'd pick Romney, but the Senate gets to pick the VP, which means we could see a Romney-Biden administration.
Click to see the answers
to other Election Day questions.