Chapter 2 describes how deadlines form sovereign boundaries around territories, their populations, and democratic citizenries. The chapter discusses the difference between single moment deadlines such as founding moments when a citizenry is constituted, countdown deadlines such as statutes of limitation or the expiration of a visa, and recurring deadlines such as election cycles. Each of these kinds of deadlines form boundaries that escape the attention of many democratic theorists despite their significance to establishing states, populations, and demoi. Single moment deadlines exhibit the kind of arbitrariness associated with sovereignty whereas recurring deadlines leave open the possibility of a demos that can revisit decisions. Countdown and recurring deadlines are the bookends around specific durations of time that become significant in democratic politics. Waiting periods and cyclical deadlines are distinctly more democratic than single moment deadlines, making possible processes such as consent, naturalization, non-capital punishment, and exercises of the franchise.