Monday, October 13th, 2008
People Are Talking About Our Voting System!
Last night I noticed we were getting some traffic by way of a Reddit post, so I went to check it out. Turns out it was a link to our friends over at The Point, who are running a user-generated pledge to create a de-facto Election Day National Holiday. Here’s how it works: if 100,000 agree to participate, then the de-facto holiday is on, and I guess they’ll all skip work. So far only 455 takers.
The post made it to the front page of Reddit last night and as of right now has 192 comments. Here’s a screen shot:
Below is a sampling of the comments from the thread:
Over here (Greece), elections take place on a Sunday and Monday is a national holiday, even though you usually vote in your city of residence.
And in Greece it’s a crime to not vote on election day. Too many people lost their lives liberating Greece from oppression to be slapped in the face by some [bleep!] who has better things to do than vote. it’s a disgrace to people who die to liberate you to not take a moment to vote.
I don’t get most of the federal holidays off now, so adding a federal holiday for the election won’t affect me at all. It’s a nice idea in concept, but those who are most likely to miss the election because of work wouldn’t necessarily get the day off work just because it is a holiday.
Most states already have laws on the books mandating paid time off on election day. With the polls opened 7am until 7pm in most places, most people working a standard 8 hr shift can get to the polls without issue. Additionally, one can pre-vote or submit an absentee ballot to ensure that their vote is counted.
What I don’t get is why it’s on a weekday. I mean surely, even if you don’t want to make a new holiday, you could at least put it on the day where the fewest amount of people work? What’s the disadvantage to having an election on a Saturday or Sunday?
Click here to read all of the responses.
Still don’t know why we vote on Tuesday? Click here.
