A precinct, voting district, polling division, or polling district, is a subdivision of an electoral district, typically a contiguous area within which all electors go to a single

polling place A polling place is where voters cast their ballots in elections. The phrase polling station is also used in American English and British English, although polling place is the building

to cast their ballots.

Canada

elections in Canada Canada holds elections for legislatures or governments in several jurisdictions: for the federal (national) government, provincial and territorial governments, and municipal governments. Elections are also held for self-governing First Nati ...

, the area is called a polling division. Canadian political parties do not have elections for positions representing the voters in a polling division, although parties may assign volunteers to canvass a poll, or to be an outside

scrutineer A scrutineer (also called a poll-watcher or a challenger in the United States) is a person who observes any process which requires rigorous oversight. Scrutineers have the tasks of preventing the occurrence of corruption and of detecting genuine ...

pulling the vote (i.e. reminding supporters to go to vote) on Election Day or an advance polling day, or to be an inside scrutineer in the polling station noting who has come to vote so that can be communicated to an outside scrutineer.

United Kingdom

In the

Unreformed House of Commons "Unreformed House of Commons" is a name given to the House of Commons of Great Britain and (after 1800 the House of Commons of the United Kingdom) before it was reformed by the Reform Act 1832, the Irish Reform Act 1832, and the Scottish Reform ...

, election of

knights of the shire Knight of the shire ( la, milites comitatus) was the formal title for a member of parliament (MP) representing a county constituency in the British House of Commons, from its origins in the medieval Parliament of England until the Redistribution ...

took place at a single venue, typically the county town. Latterly there was a separate voting booth erected for each

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...

, but all at a single venue. Exceptionally,

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

allowed residents of the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...

to vote at Newport to save the difficulty of crossing the

Solent The Solent ( ) is a strait between the Isle of Wight and Great Britain. It is about long and varies in width between , although the Hurst Spit which projects into the Solent narrows the sea crossing between Hurst Castle and Colwell Bay t ...

to vote at Winchester on the mainland.

United States

In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, an electoral precinct or voting district is the smallest unit into which electoral districts are divided. A larger geographic unit such as a

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...

, or city council district is typically subdivided into precincts and each address is assigned to a specific precinct. Each precinct has a specific

polling station A polling place is where voters cast their ballots in elections. The phrase polling station is also used in American English and British English, although polling place is the building

where its residents go to vote; however, more than one precinct may use the same polling station. A 2004 survey by the United States Election Assistance Commission reported an average precinct size in the United States of approximately 1,100 registered voters.

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...

had the smallest average precinct size with 437 voters per precinct, while the

District of Columbia ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

had the largest average size at 2,704 voters per precinct. The 2020 survey by the United States Election Assistance Commission found a total of 176,933 precincts or precinct equivalents in the United States, of which 175,441 were in the 50 states plus the District of Columbia and 1,492 were in overseas U.S. territories. Electoral precincts usually do not have separate governmental authorities, but there are limited exceptions in some states. In

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, the voters within a precinct may vote on liquor control laws that will apply only within that precinct (called "local option elections"). When precinct boundaries are redrawn during redistricting, the result of the vote continues to bind the areas that were formerly inside the precinct's boundaries, although it does not bind any areas that have been newly added to the precinct since the vote. In addition, in Alabama, in those counties that have not abolished the constable system,

constables A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in criminal law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. A constable is commonly the rank of an officer within the police. Other peop ...

are elected from individual electoral precincts.Ala. Code § 36-23-1(a)
accessed 2020-02-23. In a political party, individuals, known by various titles such as

precinct committeeman A precinct captain, also known as a precinct chairman, precinct delegate, precinct committee officer or precinct committeeman, is an elected official in the American political party system. The office establishes a direct link between a political ...

, precinct captain, or Precinct Committee Officer, are elected by ballot or county party executive committee, to represent precinct residents in every level of party operations. They report to the party on how the voters in a precinct feel about candidates and issues, and encourage people to vote.

References

{{USCensus Geography