Is it time to make Election Day a federal holiday? 🗳️ Some say it would boost voter turnout and align the U.S. with other democracies, while others argue it could create challenges for hourly workers and cost millions. Dive into the debate over whether a federal voting holiday is the best way to strengthen democracy or if there are better solutions. Check out the full breakdown!
In Germany we always have elections on Sundays so it’s basically a public holiday (unlike in the US where stores are still open). There are enough places to vote (though you’re assigned to the one in your district for statistical reasons) so you rarely have to stand in line. I’ve seen pictures of voting lines in the US and was shocked…
Mail-in votes are available to everyone and it’s being used a lot but for many people going to the voting place in person has more meaning to it. Some even put on a suit, but that could also be because they are on the way to church.
Electronic voting was discussed but the consensus is that it’s not safe enough.
The question if it should be a public holiday in the US is weird to me as it is a very clear YES and also YES people should definitely always get a day off on public holidays wtf
I’ve seen pictures of voting lines in the US and was shocked…
Yeah, but those aren’t ubiquitous.
If you live in a suburb or rural area you can count on a dozen nearby polling stations and a 5 minute in and out.
If you live anywhere that supported the confederacy and might vote blue then you might have to deal with a 4-5 hour wait, coupled with provisional ballots that are not counted, voting roll purges, and other minor issues.
I guess what I’m saying is those crazy lines aren’t too much of an issue so long as you try to vote in a part of the country Hitler himself didn’t write of as an example of genetic enforcement to follow in Mein Kampf.
Thanks for the clarification!
So many things to fix about our broken democratic institutions. Every state should have mail-in voting as well as early voting. Every state should automate the registration of voters as much as possible as well. And sure, election day should be a federal holiday, or moved to Sunday or Saturday, at least.
Other things to work on: ranked choice voting and getting rid of the nasty racist holdover that is the EC. Also, we need to remove the special privileges that rural land has over people. Way too many ways our current system gives remote areas more representation than they should have…
Good points except for Ranked Choice. That archaic voting system is a sort of poison pill.
It doesn’t actually solve any of the problems proponents claim it does, and it adds complexity and additional points of failure. It was designed in 1788, but rejected for use in France at the time due to the habit of eliminating the Condorcet winner. (The person who would win in a one on one election vs all other candidates)
The bad idea was then reinvented in the early 1800s as the Single Transferrable Vote, with no fixes for that pesky Condorcet issue.
No, the way to go is either the simplicity of Approval, or the more granular STAR. (STAR is the new hotness, designed this century, with the pitfalls of past systems in mind)
Both systems are completely immune to the Spoiler effect while also allowing, or even encouraging the growth of third parties.
My impression is that when most people mention “ranked choice” voting, what they really mean is “ranked choice voting with instant runoff” which is functionally identical to STAR voting.
It’s almost as if people should be paid enough and have enough PTO to live and enjoy it, as well as vote.
Yes. There are no drawbacks.
Benefits: People get to exercise their constitutional right to participate in democracy without sacrificing their livelihood
Drawbacks: None
Drawbacks: Stockholders don’t like it when the slaves don’t work
Pissing off stockholders is a benefit
I’m all for it as long as bars, restaurants, grocery stores, and shops close down too. Fast food workers and the like shouldn’t have to show up to work when everyone else gets the day off to vote.
This could be easily solved if we simply allowed voting to go on for a week, and mandated that every business must give every employee a day off during that week to go vote. Hell, it could be a month if we wanted. The only reasons to limit voting to a single day are malicious ones.
Trump 2024!
Honey, please go sit back at the children’s table. The adults are trying to converse.
OK, so make all voting days a holiday?
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Even easier. Make the shit electronic. Stop pussy footin around and make it available on the Internet.
I know enough about the internet to know that this would end up being a bad idea. Not to say that there isn’t a way to correctly implement it (I honestly don’t know). But even if there is, should we trust them to do it correctly? Our (US) government full of octogenarians?
Why? Everything is on the Internet. You can buy houses and bank on the Internet. There are scams sure. But the physical votes are still tabulated and entered into the fuckin Internet!
The voting machines that those votes are originally entered into are not connected to the Internet, they’re on their own disconnected network, and for very good reason. Software is far from perfect, and putting voting software on the Internet would immediately make it a target from attackers all over the world, and they would absolutely be hacked and manipulated.
Right. And you trust the American government to be transparent with this process? You trust every individual involved in programming this system not to fuck it up in some way, intentionally or not?
There’s just way too much that can go wrong, and more possible attack vectors that could possibly be accounted for. We already have state actors actively attempting (often successfully) to interfere with our elections. What makes you think putting it online wouldn’t make that 1000x worse?
As a programmer I really really don’t think this is an idea we’re capable of implementing in a way that’s safe/secure/etc.
See also: https://xkcd.com/2030/
Although the federal government cannot require private companies to observe holidays
JFC what a dystopian hellhole. It kills me they are so proud of their shitty living conditions.
Wait really, why coulsnt they force them to?!? In Canada companies that are open pay huge fines. Companies that are deemed essential do not recieve fines but have to pay 2.5 Mult to employees and if the employee does not work they get a days pay.
Money is God in America.
Okay, let’s give everybody holidays off.
…well, I guess we need essential services like police, fire, medical, etc.
…and if they’re going to work, they’re gonna need food, so restaurants should be open too.
…and if they all gotta get to work, we gotta have gas stations open as well.
…and with all these other people off, people are gonna vote then want the rest of the day to do things, so we should probably have stores and entertainment venues open also.
And now all the “minimum wage” people are stuck working on a holiday, while the people who can afford to be off actually get off.
Rinse and repeat for every current holiday.
I can’t wait for the Election Day car sales!
To be honest i can’t tell if this is satire, spoof or against day off? I mean emergency social services are essential. Food and the rest are not, you do your shopping the day before and bring a lunch, self serve pumps are everywhere anywyas and entertainment services are not essential.
It’s not satire, it’s 100% the reasoning that would be used in this argument. That’s the train of thought that we took towards covid.
I used to work in a cinema.
Christmas day was our single busiest day of the year, every year. Even with traditional Christmas activities like having family dinners and gift-giving, people still wanted to go see a movie. They couldn’t stay home with their families for just one day so we minimum wage saps didn’t get to stay home with ours.
Nothing I wrote was satire. This is exactly how it is in the US.
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If you have a white-collar job, enjoy your day off.
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If you have a blue-collar job, you might not have to work, depending on what holiday it is.
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If you have a service job, fuck your holiday because money.
Going to the movies for Christmas is an American Jewish tradition, usually followed up by Chinese food
I’m going to old all over the place. When I was a teen in the late 90s I worked at a grocery store. We were open 24/7 except three times per year. We closed at noon on Thanksgiving (reopened at 5am the next day), noon on Christmas Eve through Christmas Day, and noon on New Years Eve. We always had assholes come in to try to “get one thing that I forgot” but turned them away because they’d inevitably try to load up a full cart. We were given strict instructions to turn everyone away starring at noon sharp.
Now, grocery stores just stay open. Like, really, you can’t close even a couple of times per year to let people be with their families?
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Tell that to all the companies that were starting black Friday on Thursday night.
Oh, we are not proud of it. We’re trying to chip away at the absolutely fucked power structure, but the people in charge of the system have a vested interest in preserving it, with all of its fucked up little idiosyncrasies like this.
All of those drawbacks are bullshit.
Early voting and mail in ballots should be more available to everyone. That’s not a reason not to make it a holiday.
Private employers can’t be forced to observe a holiday. That’s not a reason not to make it a holiday. People required to work could still go before or after work, and would see reduced wait times because public employees would be able to go during work hours.
Finding childcare for the day is a problem anyway, as polling places are often schools, and the kids are sent home anyway. If it was a holiday, you could take your kids with you to the polls and then go to the park. That’s almost a reason not to make it a holiday, but not really.
If banks, post offices, and schools are all closed, a lot of businesses will also close because work slows down. Other employers, like retailers, food service, and entertainment venues like movie theaters would all see an uptick in business, and would probably offer extra pay for those shifts.
Yes to mail in ballots. Yes to early voting. Yes to a national election holiday. Reduce the barriers to voting. No to ID laws. No to voter roll purges. No to proof of citizenship requirements.
Over here all employers have to give employees 4h to vote. So if it’s open from 8 to 8 and you work from 8 to 4 they don’t have to give you time off, but if you work 8 to 6 they have to cut your shift at 4 instead.
That’s a good system. Let’s do that.
ID and citizenship requirements seem like pretty basic requisites to voting, what’s wrong with those?
Inconsistent access and inconsistent standards, for the most part.
A classic example is how certain states (Texas, for instance) will assert that gun licenses qualify as a valid ID but state university student IDs will not. Another is in how IDs - like driver’s licenses - have a fee associated with registration and renewal, which amounts to a poll tax. A third is that citizenship isn’t necessarily a prerequisite for voting in municipal and state elections. So requiring someone to be a citizen before accessing a ballot becomes an unconstitutional burden at the state and local level.
Then there’s the fact that we already have a voter id system. It’s called your voter registration card. You typically get one after you’ve registered to vote in your municipality. The fight over voter ID is that you need a second piece of identification on top of the registration card.
Broadly speaking, if everyone was afforded equal access to a single uniform ID document at no cost, there wouldn’t be a problem. But so much of the Voter ID rules don’t establish homogeneous ID requirements. Implementation is left up to the states. So states with a history of hostility towards democratic rule can back-door disenfranchisement into the process of obtaining these documents.
Because not everyone has an ID or proof that they are a citizen, and in the United States, you’re presumed innocent until proven guilty. When you register to vote, you fill out a form stating you are a citizen and elligible to vote. There are existing mechanisms to check that voters are eligible. If you lie or commit fraud, those are crimes. There’s a paper trail, and if it were an actual problem, there would be proof that it’s happening.
Homeless people have the right to vote. Forgetful and disorganized people have the right to vote. Hermits and people who survive house fires have the right to vote. ID requirements or requiring proof of citizenship creates an unnecessary barrier that disenfranchises more legal voter than the illegal votes it prevents. Because that’s the point of them, they want to stop legal voters from voting.
But you can’t ignore very real problems with increasing the pool of ignorant voters, since whoever has the most access to that pool will have an advantage because these ignorant voters can be taken advantage of simply because they are ignorant. Should people be voting if they don’t know how the system works or what the candidates even stand for? If you can’t be bothered to care about it enough to go through minimal requirements, do we need to go out of our way to shove a ballot in their hands?
And yes, I acknowledge that the kind of thinking I outlined above can be used to repress voters as well. I guess my point is that these policies cut both ways. It’s not such a clear cut answer as “give everyone a ballot”, because that can (and has) very very easily turn into “give them a ballot and suggest who they should vote for”.
I live overseas so I’m eligible for an absentee ballot.
I filled it out and submitted it a few weeks ago.
It was all done through the government website for my state and email.
Couldn’t be easier.
Everyone should be eligible for mail in or early voting.
No. All that needs to be done is make universal vote by mail the standard.
My state has been doing it for 24 years now, this will be the 7th Presidential election (2000, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24) and 13th Congressional election. It works, it increases voter participation, there’s a built in paper trail, there’s nothing to not like about it.
Remember how 2014 had a record low turnout for a mid-term election?
"the lowest it’s been in any election cycle since World War II, according to early projections by the United States Election Project.
Just 36.4 percent of the voting-eligible population cast ballots as of last Tuesday, continuing a steady decline in midterm voter participation that has spanned several decades. The results are dismal, but not surprising – participation has been dropping since the 1964 election, when voter turnout was at nearly 49 percent."
Meanwhile, in my state:
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2014/11/voter_turnout_of_695_percent_i.html
"Turnout in this fall’s election reached 69.5 percent, just half a percent short of turnout in 2010 and 2006 and 1.5 percent better than in 2002, Secretary of State Kate Brown said Wednesday.
More than 1.5 million Oregonians cast ballots, a record high for a non-presidential election, while nearly 700,000 registered voters sat out."
I got home last night from work, voted, and ate dinner. Got up to go to work and tossed the ballot in my mailbox this morning. It was amazing. Being able to get an absentee ballot in NY has been absolutely wonderful.
I am a bit worried about my signature though lol I can’t remember if I signed with my stupid fresh out of highschool “script” signature on previous ballots that I used on my social security card, or my general signature I’ve been using for everything for decades now…
I mean, if it gets rejected, they will let you know. Good news is you can always re-register and update your signature.
Here, we have the motor voter registration, so it’s the same signature as my drivers license.
There is one argument against everyone voting by mail that I accept:
People could be making “let’s go vote together”-meetups to make sure their friends are voting what they “should” - which would destroy freedom and privacy of the vote which are fundamental.
The same can also happen in abusive relationships where one partner can take away the freedom to vote what they want from the other by standing behind them when they fill out their ballot.Voting by mail is safe, but because of those two it should NEVER be the de-facto standard. It’s great to have more people voting - but whoever can should still vote personally if possible.
I know the setup of the voting booths is way worse in the US than here in Germany so both the way to them and the lines in front of them are longer, so that decision might flip towards voting by mail quicker, but imho voting in person should remain the standard - just because noone can look over your shoulder when you’re making your cross in that setting
Generally, it’s less “lets go vote together!” than it is “lets drop off our ballots together!”
Coercive voting is a crime, in 24 years we haven’t seen an incidence of it yet, but that was one of the FUD arguments when we voted for it.
“What’s to stop an employer from requiring employees to bring in their ballots and vote the company line?”
Well, it’s a crime. If you don’t trust your employees to vote, do you trust that not one will rat you out?
From my point of view both the police and the judges are getting heavily influenced by people with a less democratic agenda in mind.
Something like that would’ve never worked years ago - but with 4 more years of Trump handpicking judges? I wouldn’t even be sure the Supreme Court would strike something lime that down if it’s done subtle enough.
The military has allowed it since the civil war.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/debate-over-mail-voting-dates-back-civil-war-180976091/
Same way for Colorado. It’s all the benefit of electronic voting, but with the added safety of paper ballots. And it’s a format we’re all familiar with from school – bubble in our answer (just with a pen instead of a number 2 pencil), and then turn it in. The counters feed the ballots into the counting machine, which tallies up the votes, then the ballots are stored in nice boxes, which can be retrieved and hand-counted on the off-chance the machines get hacked or otherwise…tampered with (Tina Peters, I’m looking at YOU…as you go to jail for 9 years! :3).
Easier solution than trying to have a single day off for everyone:
Since early voting is a thing, all employers should be required to give workers 1 paid flex day during voting season so they can vote.
They can even tie the flex day to evidence that they actually voted, so it truly encourages voting instead of just being an extra day off.
I don’t really think we need to police the extra day off. If someone was unable to vote that day for some reason, they shouldn’t be penalized.
While I agree we should police it, have you ever worked for a big corporation, they are going to police it…
The law can be written to prevent that easily. One flex day off for every employee during the election season is mandatory to give people the opportunity to vote.
That is how every other major holiday is handled. Just because I get a winter holiday break every year doesn’t mean that my employer checks to see if I was Santa eligible before I get the vacation.
The goal isn’t to get people an extra day off, it’s to get them to vote.
When I go to a conference or take paid time for education I’m required to prove what I was doing.
We should also fight to get people more general vacation time, sure. But as far as mandating days off for voting I think it makes sense to make sure that they use that day to vote.
Otherwise we’ll just end up with a lot of cheap weekend cruises popping up to take advantage of all the extra holiday time around elections with no increase in voter turnout.
God forbid Americans get more holiday time, especially considering that the rest of the developed world tends to get a lot more than we do.
God, Americans are so cucked when it comes to employee rights (I’m an American). Oh no, someone might get an extra day off!? Disgusting!
I get your point, and yes people should use the day to vote. But trying to mandate it, or police it in some way to make sure you didn’t accidentally give your employee a day off for “no reason,” is fucking absurd.
I imagine in most cases, it would probably even cost more to monitor, than the amount they lost for not having that employee for one day.
This isn’t about making sure businesses make more money. It’s about incentivizing people to vote.
My business gave extra time off to people who got Covid vaccines because it incentivizes people to do something that’s good for them and for society. For people who were already getting the vaccines it was a bonus day, and it gave the push for people on the fence.
It should be the same with voting. The reality is most people do have the opportunity to vote, but choose not to take the time to do it. An extra holiday won’t change that.
Giving them an extra day off no-strings attached is a good thing. They should get an extra month. But if we are specifically trying to get people to vote, then that particular day off should come with strings just like my vaccine day.
How are you going to have evidence of voting?
Everyone that votes gets some variant of “i voted” sticker already, that changes every where, sooooo…
I think I’ve gotten one of those stickers once in my decades of voting. I never outright ask, and most times they’re out on the table or whatever… But no, they don’t give them out like they’re receipts.
However, giving each person a receipt would probably be pretty trivial…
weird, I’ve gotten one of those stickers every time i’ve voted my entire life. i thought it was just a given.
I’ve only ever gotten a sticker twice…plus you can buy rolls of them online.
Who cares about evidence of voting, you work enough days of the year, just take it for heavens sake. If I add up all days there are federal holidays in my country I get nearly 2 months worth and that is without paid or unpaid leave days you get from the employer
None of which was the point of the question, but thanks for the added perspective.
It’s not about getting the day off: the goal is getting people to vote. Tying an extra day off to actually voting is more likely to get people to the polls
Yes, you give them the day off for election day. They know why they are off. If they’re going to vote, they’re going to vote. Simply giving everyone the day off is “getting people to vote.”
Some sort of monitoring to make sure people are actually voting on the day is an absurd and pointless idea. If we’re going that far, then just do what Australia does and make it compulsory.
As it is, they record who votes. It’s how you can have multiple polling locations avaialbe but can only vote once.
It’s not a huge leap from that to being able to prove to your employer that you voted.
Unless the day off can only be used on voting day I think people will use it for their own purposes.
Additionally, opponents emphasize that private employers are not required to recognize or give paid time off for federal holidays.
lol “we shouldn’t fix this fucked up thing because this other thing is also fucked up”
that’s a you problem, dog
And the solution is right there in the sentence.
Exactly.
The solution here should be the federal government going, “Ooh! Good catch on that! Here’s a law mandating that private employers give paid holidays for all federal holidays! Thanks for looking out for employees!”
And if not all, at least for the arguably most important day of all in the self declared bastion of democracy.
This is a popular wish from MAGA types who have been told that mail and early voting is fraudulent, which isn’t supported by evidence.
If you can vote early or by mail, there is no need for a holiday on the one voting day.
At the same time, we can’t expect every grocery store worker, police officer, air traffic controller, and truck driver, and everyone else, to be off simultaneously on the same day.
I’m pretty far from a maga, and I fully support a federal holiday for it. It accentuates the importance of voting for democracy to thrive, IMO.
But I also think mail-in and early voting options should be a federal requirement as well. Right now states can impose limits on who is eligible for mail in, and that’s a huge problem.
To me its not one or the other, I think both should be done.
At the same time, we can’t expect every grocery store worker, police officer, air traffic controller, and truck driver, and everyone else, to be off simultaneously on the same day.
Here in BC, in Canada, you’re just guaranteed four hours off to vote. I think that with easier mail-in-voting (also easy to do here) would help you guys a lot.
You can instead have elections on the weekend, which gives more opportunity to vote without requiring a public holiday. Nobody would choose Tuesday if they were designing the system today.
And yes, early and mail voting should be universally implemented as well.
