La votación tiene lugar hoy.

Tener lugar is a fixed expression meaning to take place, to happen, or to be held.

So in La votación tiene lugar hoy, you should understand tiene lugar as one unit, not word by word.

• tener = to have
• lugar = place

But together, tener lugar does not literally mean to have place in normal English. It is just the Spanish idiom for to take place.

Because Spanish uses tener lugar as the normal expression here, not tomar lugar.

English says take place, so learners often try to copy that structure and say tomar lugar, but that is usually not the natural choice in standard Spanish for happen / take place.

Use:

• La votación tiene lugar hoy. = The vote takes place today.

Not normally:

• La votación toma lugar hoy.

This is a good example of why translating word for word from English can be misleading.

Because the subject is la votación, and that noun is singular.

• la votación = the vote / the voting
• tiene = it takes place

So the verb agrees with votación, not with hoy and not with any implied group of people.

If the subject were plural, the verb would also be plural:

• Las votaciones tienen lugar hoy. = The votes / voting sessions take place today.

Spanish often uses the definite article where English may or may not use the.

Here, la votación refers to a specific voting event that both speaker and listener can identify from context. So la is natural.

Compare:

• La votación tiene lugar hoy. = The vote takes place today.
• Habrá una votación mañana. = There will be a vote tomorrow.

So:

• la votación = a specific known vote
• una votación = a vote, not yet specific

Not exactly. These words are related, but they are not the same.

• votación = the voting process, the act/event of voting, or a ballot/proceeding
• voto = a vote, or the act of voting by one person
• elección / elecciones = election / elections

Examples:

• La votación empieza a las ocho. = The voting begins at eight.
• Cada diputado tiene un voto. = Each member has one vote.
• Las elecciones son en junio. = The elections are in June.

So in this sentence, votación suggests the voting event itself, not necessarily the whole election as a political process.

Yes, it is fairly neutral to formal. It is very common in:

• news
• official announcements
• formal writing
• public information

In everyday speech, people might also use other expressions, depending on context:

• La votación es hoy. = The vote is today.
• La votación se celebra hoy. = The vote is held today.
• La votación ocurre hoy. = The vote happens today.
  (possible, but less common in many contexts)

So tener lugar is perfectly correct, but it sounds a bit more formal than the simplest everyday option.

Because hoy already means today, and in Spanish you normally do not need a preposition before it.

So you say:

• hoy = today
• mañana = tomorrow
• ayer = yesterday

Examples:

• La reunión es hoy.
• Llegan mañana.
• Salió ayer.

English sometimes uses extra words like on in other time expressions, but with hoy, Spanish simply uses the adverb by itself.

Yes. Spanish word order is flexible, so you can move hoy to change the emphasis.

For example:

• La votación tiene lugar hoy.
• Hoy tiene lugar la votación.

Both are correct.

The second version puts more focus on today. It can sound a bit more formal or more like something you might read in an announcement or hear in the news.

Votación is pronounced with the stress on the last syllable:

• vo-ta-CIÓN

The accent mark shows that the stress falls there.

This is needed because words ending in n, s, or a vowel normally have stress on the second-to-last syllable unless an accent mark shows otherwise.

So without the accent mark, you would expect something like vo-TA-cion, which would be wrong.

In Spain, ción is typically pronounced roughly like thyon in standard Castilian pronunciation, because c before i has the th sound. In much of Latin America, it sounds more like syon.

Yes. La votación es hoy is completely natural and often simpler.

The difference is mainly style:

• La votación es hoy = simpler, more direct
• La votación tiene lugar hoy = a bit more formal, more like takes place today

So both are correct, but tiene lugar sounds slightly more official or written.