Make Election Day a National Holiday

Your weekly excerpt from one of my books. This week: "The Hidden History of the War on Voting"

The Republican War against your right to vote. Over the next few months the entire book will be here, new chapters posted every Sunday, for subscribers to read at no cost. If you want to get a physical book to mark up or share with others, just click on the picture above, visit your local bookstore, or check your favorite online seller.

Make Election Day a National Holiday

If the United States can get every eligible citizen registered to vote for a given election, the next hurdle is to make sure that voters are able to go to a polling place and actually cast a ballot. Fully 14 percent of registered voters who did not vote in the 2016 election reported that they were too busy or had a conflicted schedule, with another 12 percent reporting that they had an illness or disability, and another 8 percent reporting that they were out of town or away from home, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data in 2017.15

The US Constitution doesn’t specify when elections are to be held. Until 1845, each state was able to set its own date for elections. Before 1845, states held elections in the 34 days before the electors in the Electoral College voted.

In 1792, the presidential election was held from Friday, November 2, until Wednesday, December 5, in a system that resembled our current presidential primary system. While the system gave voters plenty of time to cast their votes for the popular vote, it also created a system whereby states that cast their votes earlier could influence the decisions of voters who cast their ballots later. (This problem also exists in our partisan primary system, and states jockey to hold their primaries and caucuses earlier to give their voters outsized influence.)

In 1845, President John Tyler signed an act by Congress that made the general election uniform throughout the country. From 1845 forward, Election Day was officially the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

While it may seem arbitrary to today’s Americans, Congress calculated that the first Tuesday was when most American voters would be able to make it to the polls. Jane C. Hu explained the logic in a Quartz article, writing that Congress in 1845 assumed a few things to be true about American voters at the time, aside from knowing that voters would be tax-paying white men in good standing with their respective state governments:

1. Voters were mostly farmers who would likely be done with harvest by November but would still need to take their harvest to town markets (normally held on Wednesdays).

2. Most voters wouldn’t be able to travel on Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, for religious reasons.

3. Many Christian voters would be celebrating All Saints’ Day on November 1.16

None of these considerations are relevant today; it’s time to make Election Day a national holiday.