Almost half a billion people have the opportunity to cast ballots over the next month in a string of elections with huge consequences.
Voters in Brazil, Israel, the United States, New Zealand and Spain, as well as Victoria, will all go to the polls in coming weeks.
Each contest appears close, but the likely alternative outcomes are binary and will set the countries on a completely different course, giving voters few shades of grey in their choices.
Take the US midterm congressional elections, which boil down to contests between President Donald Trump's Republicans and Democrats in several key battleground states.
If Trump's Republican party holds on to Congressional control, he will be empowered to continue his agenda, but should the Democrats win, they will set up a huge battle between executive and legislative government.
In Brazil, a presidential run-off between socialist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and right-wing Flavio Bolsonaro - the son of the former president Jair, who was jailed for sedition - offers a stark choice.
The Israeli parliamentary elections also present a line-in-the-sand moment for Benjamin Netanyahu's government, its war in Palestine, and the country more broadly.
Voters have an array of choices which distil in favour of, or against, the government and its polarising prime minister, who is both wanted for war crimes and beloved by his supporters.
"Each side feels the stakes are extremely high," Dahlia Scheindlin, political analyst and senior columnist at Haaretz newspaper, told AAP.
"Supporters of the government believe it's a matter of survival of Israel against its enemies, and believe the current government is the only one that would protect Israel.
"Those opposed to the current leadership believe it is destroying the country, having sowed divisions, incited Israelis against one another, violating the contract between citizen and state, and leaving the country vulnerable to the worst possible attack, refusing accountability and ruling for personal interest."
Then there's the Victorian state election, which affords One Nation the opportunity to make its biggest in-roads at state level in its history, with huge consequences for Australia's politics.
Political analyst Michelle Grattan sees the election as a major test of the right-wing party and its ability to crack the establishment ahead of a NSW state election in 2027 and the next federal poll.
"The election will have ripples well beyond the state," she told her eponymous podcast.
The high-stakes, high-wire festival of democracy begins this weekend in Brazil, with a run-off after Bolsonaro won 47 per cent support to Lula's 45 in October's first-round vote.
Gustavo Ribeiro, editor-in-chief at the Brazilian Report, said Brazil's governance would be reshaped by a Bolsonaro victory on October 25.
"The next president will appoint three or four Supreme Court justices, which alone could reshape Brazil's institutions for a generation," he told AAP.
"Institutional stability is also on the ballot. Flavio Bolsonaro has been linked to several corruption scandals and faces alleged ties to organised crime.
"A Flavio presidency would likely push Brazil toward deinstitutionalisation, and that would raise compliance risks for anyone doing business in the country."
Two days later, Israel goes to the polls, and the following week, the US, which is set to turn on the governing Republicans.
Mr Trump is not on the ballot, as these elections come in the middle of his four-year term, with voters instead electing members of Congress.
NPR congressional report Eric McDaniel said two issues - the cost of living and governing corruption - were most on the minds of American voters.
"President Trump campaigned on lowering costs following robust post-COVID inflation, but failed to materially curb the rate at which costs were outpacing wage growth, in large part due to energy price spikes stemming from his decision to go to war with Iran," he told AAP.
"Voters also link rising prices to the belief that American politicians are primarily interested in looking out for their own interests rather than addressing the kitchen-table issues that matter to the public."
Should Democrats gain control, they will be able to interrogate and stymie Trump's agenda, though the president would like veto their attempts to govern.
"The president has been empowered to enact his agenda without substantive oversight or input, continuing the trend of atrophying congressional powers in the quarter-century since the September 11 terror attacks," Mr McDaniel said.
"Democratic control would likely mean aggressive oversight, but likely little legislation due to the realities of divided government."
Spain was not due to go to the polls until mid-2027 but Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called a snap election after a series of crises.
"Many say they are dissatisfied with his policies, particularly his handling of the ongoing housing crisis and immigration," Barry Tabrizi, a senior journalist at Spain's biggest English-language newspaper The Olive Press, told AAP.
"This discontent has contributed to nationwide protests."
Migration, including a mass border crossing to Spain's African outpost of Cueta, and housing concerns underpin this election.
Elevating the contest is Mr Sanchez's seniority among European leaders from the left: should Spanish voters remove him, a leading pro-Palestinian voice among the developed world would be gone.
"If that happens, Spain could see tighter immigration controls and more house-building, while support for tenants and homebuyers may be scaled back. Subsidies for poorer sections of society could also be reduced," Mr Tabrizi said.
The sixth election - New Zealand - is similarly engulfed in a battle between left and right, but with a curveball owing to its electoral system.
Polls show Chris Luxon's conservative coalition and the Labour-led left bloc are neck-and-neck ahead of the November 7 election.
The collapse of major party support - from a combined 80 per cent a decade ago to under 60 per cent in today's polls - will see more radical minor parties in government no matter the outcome.
"The votes for the Greens and Te Pati Maori will determine the centre-left's vote, whilst voting for ACT and NZ First will determine the centre-right," the editor of the website Politik, Richard Harman, told AAP.
The entire election could come down to a moderate new party, Opportunity, which is pledging to negotiate with either bloc and offer power to the most future-focused.
"The Opportunity Party, which is a centrist, environmentally focused party not unlike Australia's teals, could hold the balance of power," Mr Harman said.
Should that take place, it would be a group of first-time MPs, rather than voters, who would decide the next Kiwi government.