This morning I explained to Soledad O’Brien on CNN’s Starting Point why Americans have historically voted on Tuesdays and why we should move Election Day to the weekend. Soledad brought up that in Puerto Rico, Election Day is a holiday and turnout can get up to 90% of eligible voters. Her point was great, and I told her as much:

As you said, in Puerto Rico, [Election Day is] a national holiday. People are out in the streets celebrating. In America, the Tuesday after the first Monday in November is a work day, just like any other day. In New Hampshire, where you are right now, it’s one of the most political states in the entire Union and the last primary election for president held there 53% of the people showed up to vote.

Watch the video for more of our conversation. (more…)

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Before we headed to Iowa to ask the 2012 GOP candidates how they’d protect our right to vote, I stopped by the Current TV studio of The Young Turks to talk about why we were hitting the road. Host Michael Shure asked me about how new restrictions on the franchise this election cycle play into our work. I told him they go hand in hand:

Enough is enough with some of these laws in some of these states. People are trying to roll back the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which said we’re going to take a good hard look at any proposed changes in states with a history of discrimination… from Texas to Florida, wherever. Any attempt to restrict the franchise. Whether it’s voter ID or taking back early voting is terrible, and it’s very closely connected with what we’re doing at Why Tuesday.

Watch our entire conversation. (more…)

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I was at the CBS News Broadcast Center in New York last week to talk about our push to move Election Day to Saturday and Sunday to increase turnout. I sat down with senior political reporter Brian Montopoli and told him why we think it’s time to upgrade our voting system.

In 2011, coming onto 2012, we will be voting on a day and in a way that was set for an agrarian society 160-something years ago. Frankly it literally is just silly that we’re still voting on this day when so many Americans are working two jobs, don’t necessarily have time to make it to the polls before or after work.

Watch the complete interview and let us know what you think. (more…)

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I stopped by the Los Angeles studio of What’s Trending, when else, this Tuesday, to talk with host Shira Lazar about who we are and what we do. The video of my appearance below. Douglas Sarine recaps my visit:

With the 2012 presidential race revving up, What’s Trending asked Jacob Soboroff of Why Tuesday to stop by the studio and a talk about the state of politics online.

We started off by finding out a bit more about the Why Tuesday organization and their goal. “I think that eventually, we might be able to move election day to the weekend, so more people can vote,” Soboroff suggested. (more…)

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Ezra Klein, the blogger and columnist for the Washington Post, has bestowed upon the Weekend Voting Act, the bill in Congress which would move Election Day to Saturday and Sunday from “the Tuesday after the first Monday in November,” his first-ever “No Brainer Award.” We are thrilled the act, which we’ve covered here extensively, got the nod from Ezra. Here’s what he had to say:

This column is usually about the Big Issues. Health-care reform. The deficit. The debt ceiling. The grand, Ragnarok-level clashes (yes I just saw ‘Thor’) between the two parties.

But not today. Today, I want to introduce the No-Brainer Awards: a roll call honoring some of the best legislative ideas you won’t see leading the evening news. These thoughtful bills and responsible reforms aren’t polarizing or sweeping, which you’d think would make it easier for them to pass. But for many of them, the absence of partisan passion means they never make it to the front of the congressional agenda. So let’s give them a push.

[snip]

The Weekend Voting Act: Ever wondered why Election Day always falls on a Tuesday? It dates to 1845, when Congress was trying to find a convenient day for a largely agrarian society to vote. It took many voters a day or so to travel into town, and a day to travel back out, and it was important for everyone to be home on Sunday, as that was the Lord’s day. So Tuesday seemed like a good compromise. And maybe, in 1845, it was. But in 2011? It looks less like a compromise and more like a conspiracy.

“They don’t want you to vote,” Chris Rock said. “If they did, we wouldn’t vote on a Tuesday.”

Rep. Steve Israel and Sen. Herb Kohl have a bill that would move Election Day to the first full weekend in November — two days when most Americans don’t have to work, drop their kids off at school or rush home to prepare dinner. A compromise, in other words, that fits the economy in 2011 rather than the economy in 1845.

We couldn’t agree more. For more about who we are and what we do here at Why Tuesday? click here. You can read Ezra Klein’s complete blog post at the Washington Post.

Photo of the U.S. Capitol katieharbath on Flickr.

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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.

[skip]

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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