First, some background, true for the United States in general: Every four years, we have an election for the President (and Vice-President; they run together as a single ticket). In addition, each state has two Senators and at least one (depending on population) member of the House of Representatives, who all together comprise the legislature of the United States. Senators serve for a term of six years (with staggered elections every two years; no state votes for both of its Senators in the same year), and Representatives serve for terms of two years. So there’s a federal election in each state every two years, which always includes at least one Representative, and sometimes the President and/or a Senator.
In addition, there are also elections at the state level and lower. Every state has a governor and a state legislature, and various other officials (often including judges and some attorneys), and there are also generally elected officials at the county and/or city level (typically, mayor and/or county commissioner, council members, and often the superintendent of schools and other school board members). Every state has its own procedures for these elections, but in years when there’s a federal election, they’re generally tacked onto it. There may or may not also be ballot initiatives, where the people decide directly on some issue, rather than electing individuals to make the decisions.
For some races (especially for federal positions like President), each state will have primary elections or caucuses where each party selects who they want to run in the general election. The different states hold these elections at various times; we’re currently in the midst of the primaries for the presidential election which will be held this fall.
All of the above is true for the United States in general. I apologize if I repeated anything you already knew, but I don’t know the equivalent information for any other country, so it seemed presumptuous to assume that non-Americans would know our system.
Now, then, when I’ve voted here in Montana, the procedure has been something like this: Some time before the election, all voters are sent a little card in the mail telling them where their polling place is. For me, it’s been the Fish, Wildlife, and Parks building (the place you’d ordinarily go to get a hunting license, or the like), the campus arena, and the campus stadium. On election day, you go to the designated location, and one of the volunteers checks your ID, and looks up your name in a big list of voters in the district. They give you a ballot, which you then take to a little folding desk with a cubicle built around it for privacy. The ballot has all of the offices and issues on it: Around two dozen offices (for which you vote for people) and perhaps a half-dozen issues (for which you vote yes or no). The ballot is marked by pencil, by filling in little bubbles. After voting, you put the ballot in a plastic sleeve, and a piece of the ballot (which does not contain any of your marks) protrudes. Another volunteer tears off the protruding part, which has a serial number on it, and records the serial number with your name on another list. The sleeve is then fitted into a slot on the side of the ballot box, and the ballot dropped in, so the worker can’t see your votes. The elections are organized and overseen by someone called the Montana Secretary of State, who is appointed by the governor, and the polling place workers are chosen by the local Democratic and Republican parties (the two significant parties in the US), equal numbers of each, to ensure impartiality. Also, campaigning of any sort (signs endorsing a particular candidate, people handing out leaflets, etc.) is prohibited within some radius of the polling place.
Primary elections in Montana are held significantly after most other states, and by the time they roll around, typically all but one candidate from each party has already withdrawn from the race. So I, like many others, have never bothered voting in the primaries, and I can’t tell you what they’re like.
Occasionally (once a year, or so), a ballot issue comes up in the city, when there’s not a general election being held (these often involve things like funding for the public schools). When this happens, a ballot is mailed to every eligible voter. Like the ballots at polling places, they’re marked by filling in bubbles. The voter then seals the ballot inside an anonymous envelope, and seals the anonymous envelope inside another envelope with the voter’s information, and the address of the office which counts the ballots. The voter then signs the outer envelope, and mails it in. At the office, the outer envelopes are checked against the lists and then discarded, and then the anonymous ballots are counted.