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!
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
as a retail worker, i don’t ever get any other holidays off, why would my employer (or the insame amount of entitled shoppers) respect some new holiday?
They probably won’t, but don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. This improves the situation. Just because it doesn’t help everyone isn’t a good enough reason not to do it at all.
Do you get any extra pay for working on a holiday?
Hah!
Good one!
Having worked retail in my younger days it’s maybe the worst role I’ve ever had (tied with the sales aspect of a job I had later on in my career).
Shit pay, shit hours, ever changing schedules, horrible management, toxic work environment, frequent abuses of employees (shit like working long hours with no breaks, surprise shift extensions because someone else called off, etc.), ridiculously petty rules and policies, etc.
The idea of any sort of pay for anything other than working the equivalent hours (or more…retail is notorious for trying to get free labor off the clock) is a fairy tale.
There were some good stats in there, but this wasn’t anything groundbreaking. I’m totally in favor of making Election Day a federal holiday, it’s arguably the most important day for the continuance of our democracy after all. BUT any action must take into account the fact that so many Americans don’t get federal holidays off, and employers can’t be forced to give them that time off. So there would have to be a fund or subsidy available to employers to continue paying their workers on this new day off. It should also be a kind of superholiday so even private employers are forced to observe it.
This, and getting rid of the electoral college should be a priority once we’ve soundly defeated the orange turd and can take a couple breaths.
Mail in voting across the board could be better than a federal holiday. In Washington, I get everything I need to vote in the mail: a ballot, a voter’s guide, a postage paid envelope. I literally don’t have to wear pants to vote. I can take a week to make a decision about something before I wander over to the nearest mailbox to drop off my ballot.
Never having done it, voting in person sounds awful.
Yeah, this is actually a better solution. There’s no legitimate non-partisan reason I can think of for why anyone would be against universal mail in voting.
Same in California, and I definitely need that extra time to review the ballot and figure out how I’m voting on ballot measures and for which local officials. The ballot is huge and relatively complicated, so I can’t imagine doing that in person either.
TBF, the only thing stopping you from not wearing pants to the polls is the weather.
Agreed to your last statement. I have only ever voted by mail in ballot and anything else seems inhumane.
Yes, and I also want a hotdog after voting (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_sausage).
Now that’s a fantastic idea. How about options? Democracy grilled cheese? Democracy pizza? All food trucks get a fixed tax break to serve a single free food item pp at polling places on voting days! Basically paid advertising.
edit: Democracy TACOS!!!
I’m gonna need to go lobby now… or at least do some market research…
In Australia we have pre-poll voting (early voting), mail-in ballots, and every election day is a Saturday - with democracy sausages.
And, importantly, preferential voting.
glancing at the current crop of Australian politicians
Seems like the system is still fucked.
Well, yes. Preferential voting is one key component, the other being a decent media so the public have an idea of what’s going on. Unfortunately Murdoch owns just about everything, and it’s a problem we’re still battling against.
a decent media so the public have an idea of what’s going on
You can’t have a decent media if it has been privatized, monopolized, and staffed with reactionaries.
it’s a problem we’re still battling against.
The problem is - as it has always been - a problem of moral hazard with regards to private interests generating income from public expenditures. The Murdochs aren’t simply ideological. Their control of the press affords an enormous windfall of state money via state contracts and grants, tax abatements, and revenue from privatized land and industry.
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 rest of the developed world tends to get a lot more than we do.
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…
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
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.
Look at it like vaccine mandates. They’re difficult politically and legally. I live in Texas where businesses were explicitly banned from requiring Covid vaccinations.
So lots of businesses in Texas instead tied extra “personal holiday” days to showing evidence of vaccination. It wasn’t a requirement to be vaccinated, but a bonus incentive.
I’d be totally onboard with a system where they ran it as a tax incentive to vote. Better yet if it were a flat, fixed amount.
Like, in every precinct, you get your name checked off in the voter roll when you vote. It makes no record of who you vote for, only that you did, in fact, go to the polls and exercised your right.
Somehow export that data, send it to the IRS for cross referencing, and at tax time, if you voted in that year, it adds $100 to your tax return. Not a percentage of your income (which benefits the wealthy more than the poor) just a flat amount that basically is the government thanking you for voting. If you didn’t vote there’s no penalty… there’s just no reward.
…that said, this system would depend completely on having election day become a national holiday with businesses closed, etc. Or at the very least, mandating that employers nationwide must schedule every worker for a half day, maximum, on election day, with the other half day being a paid holiday…which would cause an absolute uproar in American politics.
Don’t do it on Election Day. Have our spread across early voting and election day. It’ll alleviate the long waits on election day itself and allow employers to stay open since not everyone is off the same day.
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.
Easy just change it to Feb 29th and it’s a holiday. Once every 4 years. Nobody will forget it.
What will you do in 2100?
Actually brilliant
Except that elections happen every year…
Midterms: “Are we a joke to you?!”
… That sounds like it would be great.
Of course it should be.
Yes.
Cons: wealthy people will lose money…
Would rather just have voting being more than 1 day. Make it a week plus mail in voting.
Have enough states screwing around with voting locations to limit it to just a day
I was surprised to learn that there are still states where you can only vote one day. California and Texas have allowed early voting for over 40 years and it’s so easy to vote. Texas even passed a law requiring polls to be open at least 9 hours the first week of voting and at least 12 hours the second week and final day of voting. I’ve only waited in line twice and the longest I’ve waited was 10 minutes.
Yeah I don’t get lines in Ohio either. Maybe 2-3 mins if I go at a busy time.
