Tuesday was chosen for elections early in the USA's history. Sunday was out for obvious religious reasons. In those days, people had to travel to the county seat to vote. If they lived in a remote area, this could be a 3-day process--one to travel to the county seat, one to vote, and one to travel home. Saturdays and Mondays were ruled out for elections becuase that would make one of those travel days fall on Sunday. So Tuesdays were chosen because it's the first day of the week that elections could be held without forcing people to travel on Sundays. The first week of November was chosen for national elections because in most areas it is neither planting nor harvest season, and it generally is before winter weather gets bad.
225 years ago we enshrined in law a time that was most convenient for most voters: farmers who voted in their county seats got to vote after the harvest but before the snows, with one day to travel to the county seat AFTER they celebrated Sunday as a day of rest, a day to vote (and transact other business) and then they could spend yet another day returning to their farms which might be as much as 20 miles (!) away. Now, we still haven't made it a day off work because too many people would take advantage of the day off to go off somewhere to do something else, like hunt, and it would further depress the percentage of registered voters who bothered to actually cast ballots.
Just another example of our archaic Constitution. Seriously, why is it that the Green Party is the only one w/ enough balls to address some of the ridiculous crap (electoral college, voting on a frickin' work day, plus more) that no longer works for a late capitalist, modern, industrial economy and society?
Tuesday elections no longer work? Huh? Find a real problem to wring your hands over. People are busy on weekends (sports, family events, church, etc). I'd rather vote during the work week (and before you try to tag me as a bourgeois, I have a 1 hour commute to work, one way).
I think there is a theory that if election day becomes a holiday, turnout would be even lower as people would do everything but vote.
Hunting, church, sporting events, and family parties take up far less of a day than WORK! I leave home at 8, get back at 8, go to sleep at 1am. When am I meant to go to the polls?? And I only have one job (and I don't have to punch in/punch out there), and I don't have kids to worry about! The idea that somehow people would abuse the day to go vacationing is ludicrous.
This is America. What do you think gets better ratings, Monday Night Football, or a Presidential debate?
Because people are less likely to go out and get bombed on a Tuesday. In England, I believe the bars are closed that day. That's my modern interpretation of it.
Right. I can go right now to the Board of elections, tell them I have been informed that I was just informed of a business trip on the date of the election and vote today if I really wanted. I also know that no booze can be sold on election day until the polls close in Ohio.
The most obvious solution, and one which every single country in the world has adopted, is to declare the election day every two years a national holiday.
I knew it wasn't true, but the point was more along the lines of "This is America, the country where, if NASCAR held an event on Nov. 2nd, 200 people from each state would decide who they wanted to be president."
Emm right It's a simple question really -- are people more likely to vote on a day off or on a workday, and anyone who's ever had to run an errand on a workday knows the answer. The stuff about how people would take Monday off as well and have themselves a 4-day trip by the ocean just does not hold up.
Uh, we're the only industrialized nation that votes during the work-week. Not coincidentally, we have a lower voter turn-out than our fellow First Worlds countries. No, I'm not going to post a source. Go look it up on those Internets instead of knee-jerk attacking me.
National holidays only help out the people who usually don't work weekends, ie: office types, education types and government types. Blue collar workers may be paid the holiday, but usually don't get the day off.