I’ve talked with both Senator Obama and Senator McCain about what they think we can do to increase voter participation, including the idea of an Election Day holiday or perhaps Weekend Voting. To see what Senator McCain had to say to me in Manchester, NH click here. You can watch my conversation with Senator Obama in Cedar Rapids, IA here.

The Obama campaign is following in the footsteps of those calling for a pseudo Election Day holiday this November 4th. They are encouraging folks to ask for this Tuesday after the first Monday in November off work or school in order to have time to vote. Whomever you’re going to vote for, take a look at this video. If you’re going to be busy next Tuesday, you may want to take this advice.

In 14 states, if you can’t make it to the polls on Tuesday, and you don’t have an excuse to get an absentee ballot, you’re pretty much out of luck.

Still confused about why we vote on Tuesday? Click here for the answer.

Hat tip to Trey Ditto for tweeting the video.

Posted in Election 2008, Election Reform, Why do we vote on Tuesday? | 2 Comments »

ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent and “This Week” Host George Stephanopoulos saw our Op-Ed in The New York Times today, and liked it, or so he blogged. See below for his endorsement of Weekend Voting from “George’s Bottom Line.”

Let’s Go to Weekend Voting

October 24, 2008 9:58 AM

One third of likely voters say they’ll vote early, nearly double what it was eight years ago.

But we don’t yet know whether the surge in early voting is simply capturing people who are going to vote anyway or actually expanding the electorate.

In their New York Times op-ed today, Rep. Steve Israel, D-NY, and Norm Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, call for weekend voting to increase the country’s voter turnout rate.

They argue Tuesday voting has depressed voter turnout rates in the US, and unfairly penalizes low-income voters who often choose between having to work and voting.

Israel is sponsoring a bill in the House of Representatives to scrap Tuesday voting and move to weekend voting on the first Saturday and Sunday after the first Friday in November.

I think Israel and Ornstein raise an important point here. Let’s go to weekend voting.

For more from Stephanopoulos, click here.

Photo of Stephanopoulos preparing for the ABC News Democratic Debate at the National Constitution Center by Why Tuesday? director of photography Thomas Macker.

Posted in Election 2008, Election Reform, Election administration, George Stephanopoulos, Steve Israel, WT? in the news, Why do we vote on Tuesday? | 1 Comment »

Make sure to pick up the Election Week edition of TIME Magazine. Managing Editor Richard Stengel gives us a shout-out in his article “Closing In on Election Day.” Here’s the relevant excerpt:

On Tuesday, Nov. 4, we will be selecting our next President. Here’s my question: Why Tuesday? If your answer was, Because that’s the way we’ve always done it, you’d be right. We’ve been doing it that way since 1845, and the murky reasons for it are that nobody wanted to vote on the Sabbath and voters needed time to travel by horse and buggy. But I’ve long thought–as have many others–that holding an election on a workday is undemocratic and makes it difficult for people to fulfill their signal act of civic participation. Either change it to Saturday, or make Election Day a holiday.

The fact that so many states now allow early voting or no-fault absentee voting is a good thing. But as a nation that is the beacon of democracy, we sure make it hard for people to participate. The American registration system is far more local and decentralized than that of almost any other Western democracy, and we pay a price for it. As Michael Scherer’s story points out, on Nov. 4 a host of problems could arise from issues such as inaccurate registration databases, badly designed ballots and confusing rules. While those problems may not be determinative or alter the result, they could, and the fact that we allocated nearly $3 billion through the Help America Vote Act in the past six years without much improving the system is a scandal. Both Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin and Representative Steve Israel of New York have introduced a Weekend Voting Act, and you can find out more about these issues at WhyTuesday.org and FairVote.org.

For the full article, click here.

Read the complete explanation of why we vote on Tuesday over here.

If you’re new here, Why Tuesday? is a non-partisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2005 to find solutions to increase voter turnout and participation in elections. Make a tax-deductible donation to us by clicking “donate” on any page on our website.

Previously: Why Tuesday? in TIME… kinda

Posted in Election 2008, Election Reform, Election administration, Time Magazine, WT? in the news, Why do we vote on Tuesday? | Comments Off

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.

Posted in Election Reform, Election administration, National Holiday, Reddit, Weekend voting, Why do we vote on Tuesday? | 2 Comments »

Driving on Tuesday Election Day may be hazardous to your health, so says NPR’s health policy correspondent Patti Neighmond. A new report by Dr. Donald Redelmeier in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates all of the rushing associated with our Election Day, smack in the middle of the work week, increases the likelihood of disabling or fatal accidents.

Redelmeier studied the U.S. in particular, he says, because this country maintains excellent statistics on vehicle crashes, noting exactly what time of day, when, where, vehicle, type and other information. He compared the number of crashes, injuries and deaths on Election Day Tuesday to the Tuesdays before and after.

His research revealed an 18 percent increase in motor vehicle deaths on voting day. “This equaled about 24 people [deaths] per election,” Redelmeier says, adding that “this was remarkably consistent across different locations and years.”

Redelmeier also found that about 800 more people suffered disabling injuries as a result of the crashes. These injuries and deaths far outnumber those reported during times associated with an increase in drinking and driving, such as Super Bowl Sunday and New Year’s Eve. Unlike on those days, Redelmeier says, alcohol didn’t seem to be an issue on voting day. And the crash rate didn’t increase in the evening, when people might be more likely to drink.

It may just be that emotions run high on voting day, he says. “There’s an election going on — everybody’s talking about it, paying attention to polls when maybe they should be paying more attention to driving.”

In the end, Redelmeier can’t say exactly why people crashed. He thinks they may have been speeding, trying to fit voting into hectic schedules. Research has already shown speeding significantly increases the risk of car accidents and deaths.

[skip]

So the message for American voters on Election Day is this: Keep your eye on the road — and slow down.

How’s this for an alternate message? Maybe we should vote on the weekend or a National Holiday, when Americans aren’t as pressed for time.

Don’t know why we vote on Tuesday? Click here for the answer.

You can watch Barack Obama tell us what he thinks about voting on Tuesday by clicking here. And you can watch John McCain talk about what he thinks about Tuesday voting by clicking here.

Car under American flag photo by Thomas Hawk on Flickr.

Posted in Election 2008, Election Reform, Weekend voting, Why do we vote on Tuesday? | 1 Comment »