politics

So many things to fix about our broken democratic institutions. Every state should have mail-in voting as well as early voting. Every state should automate the registration of voters as much as possible as well. And sure, election day should be a federal holiday, or moved to Sunday or Saturday, at least.

Other things to work on: ranked choice voting and getting rid of the nasty racist holdover that is the EC. Also, we need to remove the special privileges that rural land has over people. Way too many ways our current system gives remote areas more representation than they should have...

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

Opponents counter that a holiday may not significantly increase turnout and could even create challenges for some workers.

Ok well can we collectively agree that the opponents to this are full of shit? Like, this is less than a no brainer. This is a negative brainer. In that to oppose a national election day holiday, your aim must be less people voting. There's one party that does well when less working people vote, and surprise surprise, it's the party that keeps denying us a federal election day holiday. GEE, I CAN'T IMAGINE WHY.

Trump said this week of Democratic voting proposals. “They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”

From a 2020 Vanity Fair Article, discussing how Democrats wanted to make it easier/safer for people to vote during the pandemic.

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.

In Germany we always have elections on Sundays so it's basically a public holiday (unlike in the US where stores are still open). There are enough places to vote (though you're assigned to the one in your district for statistical reasons) so you rarely have to stand in line. I've seen pictures of voting lines in the US and was shocked...

Mail-in votes are available to everyone and it's being used a lot but for many people going to the voting place in person has more meaning to it. Some even put on a suit, but that could also be because they are on the way to church.

Electronic voting was discussed but the consensus is that it's not safe enough.

The question if it should be a public holiday in the US is weird to me as it is a very clear YES and also YES people should definitely always get a day off on public holidays wtf

In France, voting day is always a Sunday. And if you work on a Sunday (most people don't), your boss has to schedule your working day so that you can go and vote.

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?

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.

In Australia we have pre-poll voting (early voting), mail-in ballots, and every election day is a Saturday - with democracy sausages.

Yes, and I also want a hotdog after voting (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_sausage).

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.

Make voting take a week and limit campaigning to 90 days before the end of that week.

The only reason to not make voting day a holiday is because the very people preferring you not vote are losing profits and power don’t want the people worked the hardest to have a say in changing the system.

Of course it should be.

The Republican Party benefits from low voter turnout, so they'd block this at every opportunity.

Easy just change it to Feb 29th and it’s a holiday. Once every 4 years. Nobody will forget it.

Cons: wealthy people will lose money...

It's almost as if people should be paid enough and have enough PTO to live and enjoy it, as well as vote.

Yes.

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

It should be

Presidential elections occur on leap years where we just plain add an additional day to the year on our calendar. This isn't as complex an issue as the article wants it to seem.

Let's just swap from Thanksgiving (a holiday about racism and genocide) to Election Day. So there's no net cost. Just swapping from one day to another.

Yes. Yes it should.