6 WATSON v. REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE Opinion of the Court used in all three federal statutes—has always been the electorate’s choice of candidate. And a related federal statute, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), confirms that while federal law dictates when ballots must be cast, state law dictates when they must be received. As we have said before, the federal election-day statutes “simply regulate the time of the election.” Foster, 522 U. S., at 71–72. The statute governing Presidential elections provides that Presidential electors “shall be appointed, in each State, on election day, in accordance with the laws of the State enacted prior to election day.” 3 U. S. C. §1. “ ‘[E]lection day’ ” is defined as the “Tuesday next after the first Monday in November, in every fourth year succeeding every election of a President and Vice President held in each State.” §21(1). The statute governing House elections “establishe[s]�� “the day for the election” of Representatives as the same Tuesday in November in every even-numbered year. 2 U. S. C. §7. The calendar for Senate elections follows suit: Senators are “elected” at the “regular election . . . at which election a Representative to Congress is regularly by law to be chosen.” §1. By setting the day for the “election,” these statutes set the day when the electorate must make its choice. It is a “fundamental canon of statutory construction that words generally should be interpreted as taking their ordinary meaning at the time Congress enacted the statute.” New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, 586 U. S. 105, 113 (2019) (internal quotation marks and ellipses omitted). The election-day statutes were enacted and amended across almost two centuries. At all relevant times, the word “election” was understood to mean “[t]he act of choosing a person to fill an office.” N. Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language 433 (C. Goodrich & N. Porter eds. 1869) (Webster 1869); see, e.g., N. Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language 288 (rev. ed. 1844) (“[t]he act of choosing