Ambassador Andrew Young, co-founder of Why Tuesday?, is a former U.S. Congressman and mayor of Atlanta. This op-ed originally appeared on The Huffington Post.

Last week, American voters swept in a new crop of leaders, and once again brought change to Washington, DC. What has not changed, however, is the precariously low voter participation in our nation. This year barely more than 40 percent of eligible Americans voted, while more than a third of those who voted in 2008 stayed home. Our country should follow in the footsteps of the citizens of San Francisco, who voted to remove one of the biggest causes of low voter participation: voting on Tuesdays. The history of the civil rights movement deserves as much. Let me explain.

Forty-five years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson put on his coat, took his daughters by the hand, and went to the Capitol for a historic event that was his happiest day as an American — signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As he sat with fountain pen in hand, surrounded by an unusual group of allies, from Everett Dirksen to Martin Luther King, LBJ made a prediction: “And every family across this great entire searching land will live stronger in liberty, will live more splendid in expectation, and will be prouder to be American because of the act that you have passed that I will sign today.”

The Voting Rights Act made a huge difference in peoples’ lives, confirming everyone’s right to vote — but that did not mean that those having the right would fulfill it by going to the voting booth. Sadly, “that short step into the voting booth and the greatest step for society” as Martin would herald, has gotten longer and longer, not shorter and shorter. Since 1968, the turnout of American voters in federal elections has gone down every single time save once. And now our nation ranks 139 out of 172 countries worldwide in voter turnout and dead last among the G8. The problem certainly isn’t the lack of resources; more money is spent in American elections by far than anywhere in the world. This year alone over $4 billion dollars will be spent hoping that 40,000,000 votes will be cast. That’s $100 per vote. How can we, the nation that created and nurtured modern democratic principles, expect other countries to see us as a model when we are such laggards in voter participation? (more…)

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We wish the above New York Times headline said “Why Tuesday Was Terrible For Voters,” because it would be totally true.

Despite great enthusiasm and predictions of higher voter turnout, 2010 midterm elections were only a slight improvement from the 2006 midterms, when just over 40% of voters headed to the polls. This time around the total was 41.5% according to Michael McDonald at George Mason University.

Young voters stayed at home in greater numbers than in recent elections, and an entire third of voters who came out in 2008 didn’t show on Tuesday.

It’s time to start a loud national conversation about changing America’s dismal voter participation, staring with the day we vote. San Francisco is doing it. New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg talking about it. We hope you’ll join us in making election reform an issue our elected officials cannot afford to avoid.

Posted in Election 2010, Election Reform | Comments Off

There were lots of election returns to pay attention to last night, but there was one in particular we had our eye on. “Proposition I” in San Francisco, also known as the “Saturday Voting Act,” passed, establishing a Saturday Election Day in addition to the traditional Tuesday one for the November 2011 general election there. According to the data, voters there cast their ballots overwhelmingly in favor of the proposition.

I – Polling places open on the Saturday before the November 2011 election

590 of 590 precincts reporting

• YES 92,158
• NO 63,949

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg endorsed the idea last week and encouraged the voters of San Francisco to make their city a national leader on the issue of election reform. The Saturday Election Day will take place if the money is raised privately to fund the endeavor. Proposition I was pushed by Why Tuesday? San Francisco, a local movement inspired by our work nationally.

Illustration of San Francisco voting on Saturday via Why Tuesday? San Francisco.

Posted in California, Election 2010, Election Reform, Why Tuesday? San Francisco | 2 Comments »

Happy Election Day! I spoke with New York Magazine yesterday about the antiquated way we vote in the United States (aka on Tuesday), and today they’re running our chat as a Q&A on their front page. Some highlights are below:

In a nutshell, explain why we vote on Tuesdays.

The really short version is there’s no good reason in 2010. And the little bit longer version is because of an antiquated law meant to make voting convenient for the agrarian society of 1845 when the law was passed. At that time, we traveled by horse and buggy. It would take a day or longer to get to the county seat to vote, a day to get back, and you couldn’t vote on days of religious observance, so the weekend was out. Wednesday was market day, so by process of elimination Tuesday became the most convenient day.

It strikes me that we no longer have the same concerns that they had in 1845.

I do not travel often by horse and buggy, and I don’t think that many other people do today either. So what we’re saying is, just like when your computer starts to run slow, you update your operating system, because there’s no point in working with an old system, and our voting system needs an upgrade, we need to go to a voting system 2.0. There’s absolutely no point in voting on a day and in a way that was set for the United States when slavery was still in existence and there were less than half of the current states that there are today.

So would your preferred alternative be making Tuesday a national holiday, or do you want us to vote on a Saturday? Or all weekend? What would be your ideal situation?

We want to start a national dialogue about this issue, election reform, which, I admit, it’s not a sexy issue; it’s a pretty wonky and nerdy issue, but as far as democracy goes, there’s no more important issue. And as far as specifics of the law, in Congress there’s the weekend voting act, which was put forward by Steve Israel on Long island, and that would change Election Day from the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November to the weekend, Saturday and Sunday. Mayor Bloomberg has endorsed it, Barack Obama when I spoke to him said he thought it was a good idea, and San Francisco tomorrow is voting on moving Election Day to the weekend.

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What kind of setup do other Western democracies have? Are they all voting on the weekends?

Among the G-8, we rank dead last in voter participation. And when you look at the list of democracies around the world, where we’re ranked 139th out of 172, the top democracies vote on a weekend, vote on a national holiday — some of them, in fairness, have compulsory voting, where you have to show up — but the majority of them are on a weekend or a national holiday.

It seems like a no-brainer. It’s kind of strange, actually, that it’s taken this long for someone to point this out — why are we voting on a Tuesday?

It’s, frankly, silly.

To read more, the complete New York Magazine post is here. If you haven’t voted yet, you can find your polling place here.

Photo of a ballot stub via my Election Day photo slide show.

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