If you think it feels like there always seems to be an election coming up in Australia, then spare a thought for India.
Not only are there almost a billion voters, but every level of government — federal, state, local, municipal — has different term lengths.
And that means a lot of elections.
"The political cycle in India just goes on and on and on, it's kind of unrelenting," said Ian Hall, professor of international relations at Griffith University.
"Political leaders including the PM, including cabinet, spend a lot of time campaigning at national and state levels at various different elections that happen during the year, every single year."
To save the country time and money, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is proposing a radical overhaul.
It's called "One Nation One Election".
But getting the reform through won't be easy.
The opposition says the move is an "assault on democracy", with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seeking to centralise power and weaken its opponents.
But constant elections are expensive and logistically nightmarish in the most populous nation on Earth.
So, is the solution to hold all elections at once?
What's the plan?
One Nation One Election would synchronise federal and state elections across all 36 states and union territories to begin with, with a view to bringing in local elections too.
A high-level committee formed in 2023 and headed by India's former president Ram Nath Kovind said instituting simultaneous polls could add as much as 1.5 per cent to the GDP through cost savings and efficiencies.
Its report on One Nation One Election also says the policy will promote "consistency in governance" by freeing up leaders' time for their substantive job of policy making, rather than becoming consumed by campaigning.
Simultaneous elections aren't new to India. From 1951 to 1967, it held federal and state elections together.
The system was abandoned, though, when political instability, polling delays and assembly dissolutions derailed the schedule — problems that continue to exist today.
That's how the current system of staggered polling was born.
There are other countries which hold simultaneous elections too, like South Africa, Belgium and Sweden.
Just last year, Indonesia instituted simultaneous local elections.
Even Australia toyed with the idea in the 70s through two referendums, both of which were unsuccessful.
"If you introduced that into Australia, you'd probably save some time and money as well … but I suspect it'd be the case that the states would not want that to happen.
"What it would mean is the campaign would be largely dominated by national issues than state issues."
India's combination of a huge and linguistically diverse population also throws up some unique challenges.
Why so controversial?
Stuti Bhatnagar, researcher on Indian politics at the University of New South Wales, said one reason for the strong opposition to the policy was the loss of trust in the federal government.
"In its previous two terms, the BJP enjoyed absolute majority in parliament and pushed policies through without consultation with opposition parties. Now, they're apprehensive," she said.
The opposition says a country as large and diverse as India risks too much centralisation of power with a system like this, essentially nationalising every election.
In India, regional parties hold immense power. They typically remain in the states they were founded and don't contest in federal elections.
But if a national party doesn't get enough seats at the federal level, these regional titans often play kingmaker. They extract concessions from the big national parties in exchange for helping them form government.
And for the powerful regional parties in India's south, it's seen as an existential crisis.
Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala all decry the move as an attempt to de-fang regional power centres and dilute democracy.
But there's an underlying tension here.
The rift between the northern and southern states has grown under Mr Modi's government.
Southern states feel threatened by what they see as an imposition of northern culture by the BJP, particularly its brand of Hindu nationalism.
The BJP's biggest support base lies in India's populous northern states, and it's historically had a lot of trouble breaking into the south.
While the prime minister is welcomed with garlands and adoration in many states across the country, in states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala, he has been met with protests and black flags.
In recent years, regional parties have wielded enormous power in deciding which party gets to form government, and opposition to the BJP from the southern part of India has been the most consistent in the country.
"Regional parties in the south are worried that if it was just one big election, they'd be out-spent, out-campaigned, and the messaging would be dominated by the big parties, particularly the BJP," Dr Hall said.
"They fear they'd lose voters and decline in power in the south."
Critics and researchers have also raised concerns that One Nation One Election could give all voters less of a voice.
"One of the arguments is that elections are a feedback mechanism for the voters," Dr Bhatnagar said.
"Having different elections enables them to have some kind of agency in asking for changes or moderations to policies."
With the new system, voters would have to wait five years to influence policy again, she said.
There are also doubts around whether moving to the new system would be logistically feasible, and whether it would actually reduce costs.
"One of the arguments is that to be able to hold all these elections at once, you need the capability," Dr Bhatnagar said.
"They would need more voting machines, more officers, more mechanisms to do voter verification, all of which requires a tremendous amount of money and manpower … which may not exist at the moment."
What are the chances it will pass?
The BJP is in a weaker position in its third term than it was in its first two.
It lost its outright majority in parliament; lost its stronghold in the country's most populous state; and the prime minister faced a shrunken majority in his own seat.
A big-ticket item like this, which would require an amendment to the constitution, needs two-thirds of parliament to approve — numbers it doesn't have.
"It's become a lot more tricky for them to push proposals through the way they used to," Dr Bhatnagar said.
Dr Hall said the bar to pass this proposal is incredibly high.
"I think it's unlikely anytime soon. There's some discussion that this has been put on the national agenda to distract from other issues but I can see it's not an issue that's going to go away," he said.
But the Indian government is moving full steam ahead.
It introduced two bills into parliament late last year laying down the mechanism of the policy, and the cabinet has passed them.
They are now with a Joint Parliamentary Committee, where they will be reviewed.
At the moment, the BJP and its allies don't have the seats to see it through.
But a week is a long time in politics, and the government has at least four years to get the numbers it needs.
