Explain like I have at least high schoollevel previous knowledge . <| sep |> The mechanics of voting . Americans are asked to vote for the guy who will vote for the next president , as well as tens of other questions at the same time . They vote by using an electronic system , punching holes in a paper , drawing arrows to their choices , or probably several other ludicrous systems . Oh , and vote occurs on a weekday . And what the hell is up with these barelythere privacy walls on American machines ? Meanwhile in France , people vote on one issue at a time . The whole country votes the same way . You get a little enveloppe and white papers from the table at the polling office . Each paper has the name of the candidate or whatever ' s relevant for that election written in black , in the same easy to read font . Get into the cubicle , with walls and a curtain that hide everything except your feet , put the papers several different papers if you ' re voting null into the enveloppe . Go to the urn , people check your identity , you put the enveloppe in the urn , the attendant says a vot , you sign the register , and you ' re done ! Once the polling offices are closed , a small army of volunteers open all the enveloppes and read each vote out loud so the attendants can tally them on a big board . The whole process is public , anyone can attend silently , I think . Candidates send observers where they wish . The results are sent to a central office that publishes them on a set timeline . Voting is always on a Sunday , except the oversea territories that are in different timezones and vote on a Saturday so their votes can be added to the official tally on Sunday in mainland France . France ha a lot of handwringing about equal access to national procedures , so that change took a while to come while our dear politicians tried to decide whether counting the overseas votes before proclaiming the results was more or less important than having some French people vote on a different day . Having half a dozen ways to vote depending on the area you live in would never fly here !