<P> Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution sets three qualifications for representatives . Each representative must: (1) be at least twenty - five years old; (2) have been a citizen of the United States for the past seven years; and (3) be (at the time of the election) an inhabitant of the state they represents . Members are not required to live in the districts they represent, but they traditionally do . The age and citizenship qualifications for representatives are less than those for senators . The constitutional requirements of Article I, Section 2 for election to Congress are the maximum requirements that can be imposed on a candidate . Therefore, Article I, Section 5, which permits each House to be the judge of the qualifications of its own members does not permit either House to establish additional qualifications . Likewise a State could not establish additional qualifications . </P> <P> Disqualification: under the Fourteenth Amendment, a federal or state officer who takes the requisite oath to support the Constitution, but later engages in rebellion or aids the enemies of the United States, is disqualified from becoming a representative . This post--Civil War provision was intended to prevent those who sided with the Confederacy from serving . However, disqualified individuals may serve if they gain the consent of two - thirds of both houses of Congress . </P> <P> Elections for representatives are held in every even - numbered year, on Election Day the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November . By law, Representatives must be elected from single - member districts . After a census is taken (in a year ending in 0), the year ending in 2 is the first year in which elections for U.S. House districts are based on that census (with the Congress based on those districts starting its term on the following Jan. 3). </P> <P> In most states, major party candidates for each district are nominated in partisan primary elections, typically held in spring to late summer . In some states, the Republican and Democratic parties choose their respective candidates for each district in their political conventions in spring or early summer, which often use unanimous voice votes to reflect either confidence in the incumbent or the result of bargaining in earlier private discussions . Exceptions can result in so - called floor fight--convention votes by delegates, with outcomes that can be hard to predict . Especially if a convention is closely divided, a losing candidate may contend further by meeting the conditions for a primary election . </P>

When do you vote for the house of representatives
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