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Move Election Day To A Saturday!!!

The Best Day For Election Day Is

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Dragonfly

Dragonfly

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Why is election day on a week day? Why not move it to Saturday?

#1) no reason to close schools for the day - keep the kids where they need to be
#2) most people don't spend the majority of voting hours working
#3) less congestion at polls since most people won't be working
#4) more likely to get higher voter turn out due to number 2 & 3

Instead of first Tuesday in November, why not first (or second) Saturday in November?

Wouldn't that make more sense, and make voting easier for the vast majority of folks in the country?
 
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I’d hold it on the night of July 4th. It would cut down on the crowdedness of both functions.
 
Dragonfly said:
Why is election day on a week day? Why not move it to Saturday?

#1) no reason to close schools for the day - keep the kids where they need to be
#2) most people don't spend the majority of voting hours working
#3) less congestion at polls since most people won't be working
#4) more likely to get higher voter turn out due to number 2 & 3

Instead of first Tuesday in November, why not first (or second) Saturday in November?

Wouldn't that make more sense, and make voting easier for the vast majority of folks in the country?
Click to expand...

Government is closed on Saturday's. Who's going to man the polls and count the votes and make sure their valid if government employees have the day off?

And close schools for the day? Don't know about where you live but schools do not close around here just because its election day. Those that are 18 in highschool get a free 1 hr period to do whatever they want all year long, if they want to vote they can go vote then. Assuming that they do. I've never known an 18 year old to care that much about voting though. :shrug:
 
Dragonfly said:
Why is election day on a week day? Why not move it to Saturday?

#1) no reason to close schools for the day - keep the kids where they need to be
#2) most people don't spend the majority of voting hours working
#3) less congestion at polls since most people won't be working
#4) more likely to get higher voter turn out due to number 2 & 3

Instead of first Tuesday on November, why not first (or second) Saturday in November?

Wouldn't that make more sense, and make voting easier for the vast majority of folks in the country?
Click to expand...

We've have done a lot of things to make voting easier. Early voting being the latest where most states give the voter between 3-6 weeks prior to an election to vote. A lot of people take advantage of that, I did. But I think most of those who voted early would have voted on Tuesday if that was the only day of voting.

I happen to think we have gone a bit overboard to get people to vote. If they wanted to vote, they will. Moving the day I doubt would make any difference in the turnout. When voting was done on just Tuesday, one day only, prior to all this, "Let's make voting easier," junk. We had turnouts of above 60% in 1960, 64 and 68. We haven't hit 60% since. Fact is from 1936 through 1972 only twice did less than 60% of voters turnout. 1944, WWII with a lot of men overseas fighting and 1948. We still occupations forces in Japan and Europe at that time.

Since we went to early voting among other ways to make voting easier, giving us more than just one day, turnout has ranged from a low of 49.1% in 1996 to a high of 56.8% in 2008.

Fact is if voting is important enough to any individual, they'll vote even if it is just one one single Tuesday or if you give them 3-6 weeks to vote or move voting day to a Saturday. Fact is we have had higher percentage of eligible voters vote when we had voting only on a single day, a Tuesday. History proves that.
 
Whatever day it's on should be a national holiday. I spent 45 minutes in line. For some people, that amounts to a poll tax.
 
Dragonfly said:
Why is election day on a week day? Why not move it to Saturday?

#1) no reason to close schools for the day - keep the kids where they need to be
#2) most people don't spend the majority of voting hours working
#3) less congestion at polls since most people won't be working
#4) more likely to get higher voter turn out due to number 2 & 3

Instead of first Tuesday in November, why not first (or second) Saturday in November?

Wouldn't that make more sense, and make voting easier for the vast majority of folks in the country?
Click to expand...

Who closes schools on election day? I've never seen that happen anywhere.
 
Saturday is college football. No way.
 
Have it on a Saturday would mean that those whose sabbath is Saturday can't participate.

I'd have it everyday, Nov 1 to Nov 6 to avoid crowds and bad weather.

As an aside, Election Day 2012 we had no electricity due to Hurricane Sandy.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Government is closed on Saturday's. Who's going to man the polls and count the votes and make sure their valid if government employees have the day off?

And close schools for the day? Don't know about where you live but schools do not close around here just because its election day. Those that are 18 in highschool get a free 1 hr period to do whatever they want all year long, if they want to vote they can go vote then. Assuming that they do. I've never known an 18 year old to care that much about voting though. :shrug:
Click to expand...

In Switzerland, election day is a Sunday. Government employees work on those Sundays. A lot of the people counting the ballots are volunteers (random checks are done in order to prevent cheating).
 
A two week early voting period like we have in TX. Given the number of people moving here every day, week need to stretch it out in order for everyone to vote in a decent amount of time.

Even then we had long lines for the first and the last few days.
 
I take full advantage of early voting here in Texas - and voted on a Saturday!
 
Dragonfly said:
Wouldn't that make more sense, and make voting easier for the vast majority of folks in the country?
Click to expand...

I don't think it will make a difference. People are usually either A) Working on the weekends too. B) Busy doing other things that they put off during the week. Some of my friends are too busy on the weekends and during the week they are freer.
 
Helix said:
Whatever day it's on should be a national holiday. I spent 45 minutes in line. For some people, that amounts to a poll tax.
Click to expand...

Wait what??? :lamo
 
MTAtech said:
Have it on a Saturday would mean that those whose sabbath is Saturday can't participate.

I'd have it everyday, Nov 1 to Nov 6 to avoid crowds and bad weather.

As an aside, Election Day 2012 we had no electricity due to Hurricane Sandy.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much what we now have.

Early voting, mail in voting, absentee voting. No excuse for not voting.
 
American said:
Wait what??? :lamo
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Lower income workers are paid hourly, and waiting in line for hours is a greater burden for them. It's also more difficult to schedule, as many of them work multiple jobs.
 
jimbo said:
That's pretty much what we now have.

Early voting, mail in voting, absentee voting. No excuse for not voting.
Click to expand...
Unless they don't let you vote because you left off the hyphen in your name.
 
Dragonfly said:
Why is election day on a week day? Why not move it to Saturday?

#1) no reason to close schools for the day - keep the kids where they need to be
#2) most people don't spend the majority of voting hours working
#3) less congestion at polls since most people won't be working
#4) more likely to get higher voter turn out due to number 2 & 3

Instead of first Tuesday in November, why not first (or second) Saturday in November?

Wouldn't that make more sense, and make voting easier for the vast majority of folks in the country?
Click to expand...

We don't close school for Election Day. ??

I think it's fine the way it is. You can always vote early if you don't want to wait in line.
 
Folks, this isn't hard to understand.

Lots of towns/states use schools as polling places.

Location. Parking. Neutral territory. Large open rooms/gyms for booths.
 
Solution. Do a mail in ballot. Then it does not matter what day of the week the election is.
 
MTAtech said:
Have it on a Saturday would mean that those whose sabbath is Saturday can't participate.

I'd have it everyday, Nov 1 to Nov 6 to avoid crowds and bad weather.

As an aside, Election Day 2012 we had no electricity due to Hurricane Sandy.
Click to expand...

Jews can't vote on a Saturday???? Why not? They don't attend worship services all day long do they?

As opposed to the millions of people that work 8, 10, 12 hour shifts during the week.
 
Dragonfly said:
Why is election day on a week day? Why not move it to Saturday?

#1) no reason to close schools for the day - keep the kids where they need to be
#2) most people don't spend the majority of voting hours working
#3) less congestion at polls since most people won't be working
#4) more likely to get higher voter turn out due to number 2 & 3

Instead of first Tuesday in November, why not first (or second) Saturday in November?

Wouldn't that make more sense, and make voting easier for the vast majority of folks in the country?
Click to expand...

It should be over a 3 day weekend with the Monday being a federal holiday.
 
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