Should Election Day Become A Federal Holiday? Weighing The Benefits And Drawbacks
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!
https://ace-usa.org/blog/research/research-votingrights/should-election-day-become-a-federal-holiday-weighing-the-benefits-and-drawbacks/Open linkView original on lemmy.world631
Comments225
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.
In a long period like covid I can see part of the argument, but in a 1 day period food services are not essential. At all. Humans can survive without food for a day if they were dumb enough not to prepare.
Sure, I agree. But the CEOs of McDonalds and Wendy's don't want to miss a single day of profits and their wealth gives them a lot more political power than I have.
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.
If you have a white-collar job, enjoy your day off.
If you have a blue-collar job, you might not have to work, depending on what holiday it is.
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?
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?
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.
But you can't ignore very real problems with increasing the pool of ignorant voters, since whoever has the most access to that pool will have an advantage because these ignorant voters can be taken advantage of simply because they are ignorant. Should people be voting if they don't know how the system works or what the candidates even stand for? If you can't be bothered to care about it enough to go through minimal requirements, do we need to go out of our way to shove a ballot in their hands?
And yes, I acknowledge that the kind of thinking I outlined above can be used to repress voters as well. I guess my point is that these policies cut both ways. It's not such a clear cut answer as "give everyone a ballot", because that can (and has) very very easily turn into "give them a ballot and suggest who they should vote for".
Yes, because ensuring everyone can vote is how I know I will always be able to vote. Democracy is about self-determination. There is no competency requirement for people making decisions for themselves.
Now, if you told me we were going to have competency requirements for candidates, thats something I might support, depending on how it's implemented.
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.
There is currently no voter registration card where I'm from. All you have to do is say your name and they check you off. If you aren't registered in the area, you can bring a piece of mail with your name and address to prove you live in that precinct, or someone to vouch for you, then you are given a ballot and they add you to the registration for next time. But yes it sounds like there is a lot of variation in how states implement or assure the integrity of their elections, and all of them are prone to certain kinds of abuse, whether it's discouraging voters or vote harvesting or some other illegal mechanism for influencing elections in favor of the established powers.
Benefits: People get to exercise their constitutional right to participate in democracy without sacrificing their livelihood
Drawbacks: None
Drawbacks: Stockholders don’t like it when the slaves don’t work
Pissing off stockholders is a benefit
I'm all for it as long as bars, restaurants, grocery stores, and shops close down too. Fast food workers and the like shouldn't have to show up to work when everyone else gets the day off to vote.
This could be easily solved if we simply allowed voting to go on for a week, and mandated that every business must give every employee a day off during that week to go vote. Hell, it could be a month if we wanted. The only reasons to limit voting to a single day are malicious ones.
Yet they're perfectly willing to shut the entire fucking government down willy-nilly because they didn't get some piece of pork barrel spending they promised their megadonors. Fucking buffoons.
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?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2014/11/10/voter-turnout-in-2014-was-the-lowest-since-wwii/
"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).
"Those against making Election Day a federal holiday argue that such a large focus on one day is misguided, since almost 70% of ballots in the 2020 presidential election were cast before Election Day."
___
These are the same people that think that more testing will make the number of COVID cases go up.
My first thought as well. "We don't need to make it easier to vote on election day, because not many people vote on election day" - let's stop and think really hard about that for a minute.
Both arguments against it are whataboutist horseshit. Anyone claiming these as reasons not to also make it a holiday would almost certainly also be against "okay, let's do all three", because they are arguing in bad faith.
Can you imagine a world where workers get the day off as a recognized federal holiday but because of early mail in voting they took advantage of they get just a day off during some of the busiest time of the year to get chores and other tasks done and it inspires people to participate more actively and proactively because of the benefits that are overwhelmingly positive?
Its a shame that apparently there might be some lost profits for a day so its apparently impossible, and now we have to make other excuses as if they are legitimate.
If only we could find a way to monotize it and get people buying random low quality junk to trade around so that corps still gets to profit off it.
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.
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...
Good points except for Ranked Choice. That archaic voting system is a sort of poison pill.
It doesn't actually solve any of the problems proponents claim it does, and it adds complexity and additional points of failure. It was designed in 1788, but rejected for use in France at the time due to the habit of eliminating the Condorcet winner. (The person who would win in a one on one election vs all other candidates)
The bad idea was then reinvented in the early 1800s as the Single Transferrable Vote, with no fixes for that pesky Condorcet issue.
No, the way to go is either the simplicity of Approval, or the more granular STAR. (STAR is the new hotness, designed this century, with the pitfalls of past systems in mind)
Both systems are completely immune to the Spoiler effect while also allowing, or even encouraging the growth of third parties.
My impression is that when most people mention "ranked choice" voting, what they really mean is "ranked choice voting with instant runoff" which is functionally identical to STAR voting.
The two are not functionally identical at all.
Ranked Choice is a broken Ordinal voting system.
All Ordinal voting systems are flawed, because when you have to rank A over B, you will eventually reach a point where C can become a spoiler candidate.
Cardinal voting systems are immune from this, because you rate the candidates independent of each other. It doesn't matter how many candidates are on the ballot, because you're rating them vs your support, not their rank vs each other.
Cardinal systems allow you to rate two candidates the same, either with full support or full disdain.
Do you have a link that explains what you're talking about? I'm having a hard time reconciling my understanding of Ranked Choice (with instant runoff) with the downfalls you describe.
Edit: I came across this: https://betterchoices.vote/Cardinal It explains the spoiler problem with Ordinal voting systems, but also illustrates problems with Cardinal voting systems. Interesting stuff.
I'm so glad I found this site! I think I've been converted to a Consensus Voting proponent instead of Instant Runoff.
You can read more about it here: https://betterchoices.vote/ConsensusVoting
Ahh, the bullshit "bullet voting" nonsense.
That's a sort of made up problem with cardinal systems that ignores one tiny little issue. Approval, is a Cardinal voting method that is 100% bullet voting, because there's no scale. Just a simple yes and no per candidate.
It gives better results than every single Ordinal system.
These geeks study election systems in far too much detail. And have a handy little chart of Baysian Regret Basically they did math and computer shit to figure out how "happy" people would be with the results of a set number of simulated elections with roughly identical factors except the voting system used and how honestly vs strategic you are in your voting,
Approval, which is 100% bullet voting, and still comes out better for overall satisfaction of results than its closest Ordinal competitor.
Consensus is just Condorcet voting. Technically, Approval is Condorcet compliant. It might actually be the only true way to find the Condorcet winner.
Anyway, there's more, and I should link more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem
How do you counter the arguments about strategic votes in Cardinal voting systems? Those arguments are explained here: https://betterchoices.vote/Cardinal
Put simply, Approval is still subject to strategic voting that undermines the purpose of the system. In practice, nobody is going to approve of a centrist candidate from the other party because that approval vote might be the only reason that their party loses.
Strategic voting in cardinal systems is just voting.
You have to decide if you like someone enough to vote for them or not.
Unlike Ordinal voting systems where you must rank someone above or below someone else, Cardinal systems count votes for candidates independently of each other.
Your main avenue for strategy is deciding if you support someone or not. Being honest is best, but at times you might decide to include someone who you don't necessarily love, but find acceptable.
So, your example of the centrist. You might feel like they have a chance of beating someone worse, and thus you can mark yes on them. That doesn't negate the yes you gave to the candidate you actually love.
And if your guy doesn't win, well, that's an election. Sometimes your side loses, and nothing you do can change that. I will say, under Approval or STAR, you literally cannot cause your side to lose by supporting them.
(Causing your side to lose because you supported them is something that happens with regularity under Ordinal voting systems, often referred to as the Spoiler Effect)
Also, that site seems to ignore the fact that you can rate candidates the same under Cardinal systems, It's pretending that everything is Borda Count, which is an overly complex system that's only barely a cardinal system. All because their favorite system is Condorcet voting. A system with some serious flaws, but not as many as something like IRV.
Hell, their Range voting example is just fucking weird. Why would you have to choose to rate the candidates lower? If the two candidates are equally appealing to Dems, why didn't they both get equally high scores?
It's all nonsense. Just vote how you want under Cardinal systems because strategic voting only hurts you. Seriously, that's the take away of that site. Be honest and be rewarded, be contrived and "strategic" and you lose.
This explains it better
See, it's that one thing you mentioned.
The voting for the candidates people actually want.
That's what it doesn't actually do.
What Ranked Choice actually does is remove non-viable third parties from the election. That's it. You can throw a sympathy vote over to the third party of your choice, but the next line on the ballot will be the major party candidate, because you certainly don't want the other side to win. Say you throw a vote for the Greens, but your next choice is going to be the main ticket Dem, or else you risk the Republicans winning.
The problem comes when that third party just reaches viability. See, if the Greens are eliminated first, all the votes on the ticket then go to the Dem, but if somehow the Greens slip past the Dems, then the Dems are eliminated first, and the Dem first voters likely didn't list the Greens as their next choice.
And here's the thing. Republicans know that if the Greens knock out the Dems, then Republicans win. So a chunk of the Republican base strategically vote for the Greens as their first choice, and Republican as their second. And by lowering the support for their own candidate, they've secured the election for that candidate. This is the only voting system in existence that lets you show less support to a candidate to help that candidate win.
Tell me that shit isn't broken, and I'll call you a liar.
And that's just one of a dozen show stopping faults in that voting system.
The next is ballot exhaustion.
If you rate A then B then C, but they get knocked off the ballot B then C and then A, your votes for B and C are thrown out completely. So if literally every single vote listed B as their second choice, B would be eliminated even if they were universally acceptable to the voting public. But it doesn't matter, they were eliminated in an earlier round so universal support just isn't looked at.
And finally, what's the little issue of the rankings themselves. All we know is that you prefer A to B, and B to C. But how much do you actually prefer A to B by. and is that the same amount that you prefer B to C by.
Do you rate A and B as mostly the same but then rate C as a sort of horrible monster who you only begrudgingly support? We don't know because that info isn't collected on the ballot. STAR fixes that one, each candidate can have the same score in STAR, and with the scale going 0-5 you can get somewhat granular with your preferences.
I do understand Ranked Choice, and understand that it's actually worse than our current system except for one small area. And that's the elimination of non-viable spoiler parties.
Ranked Choice eliminates them from consideration.
As to its real world application, Ranked Choice is constantly fucking up elections.
https://electowiki.org/wiki/2009_Burlington_mayoral_election
If you'll notice in that breakdown, the number of exhausted ballots was twice the margin of victory.
All this stems from the fact that RCV is really just First Past the Post, but done a bunch of times on a single ballot.
You cannot solve the problems of plurality by iterating plurality.
It's a bad system that is, in many ways, worse than the one we already have.
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.
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.
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 developed world tends to get a lot more than we do.
The purpose of a day off for election day is to get people to vote. Tying it to a requirement to actually vote (not even necessarily on the same day) gives an incentive to vote instead of just another day off.
They should be getting an extra month of vacation time in general, absolutely, but that has nothing to do with incentivizing voting.
I got extra time off work for having a Covid vaccination. Since I was getting vaccinated anyway, it was just more time off just like a voting day would be. But for some people, the extra time off was enough incentive to get them to go to Walgreens and get a shot. If they'd just given everybody extra time off for Covid vaccinations without us having to prove that we did it, then those who weren't planning to get the shot still wouldn't have. And the point was to get people vaccinated for public health.
The problem with that is that it incentivizes people who are uninformed about politics to vote randomly for a day off. Our issue is not that everyone needs to vote, but that everyone who chooses to is able to and not hindered by a company.
If they want to incentivize people to get informed and get involved, then they should abolish the electoral college so people will feel like their votes count in states where they are a minority. Reinstating voting rights for felons would also get people motivated, because people who have been burned by the system may want to work to change it.
Even with all that, there will be people who do not care, do not learn, and will not want to vote, and they should be given that option. They have deemed themselves unqualified, and that should be believed.
It's perfectly legal to turn in a blank ballot. When there's an uncontested candidate running for office in my area that I do not support our I don't know the difference between the candidates I simply don't select a candidate for that position while voting for the candidates and issues I do understand.
Yes, but if someone intends not to vote at all, why waste their time and make lines longer by having them turn in a totally blank ballot?
God, Americans are so cucked when it comes to employee rights (I'm an American). Oh no, someone might get an extra day off!? Disgusting!
I get your point, and yes people should use the day to vote. But trying to mandate it, or police it in some way to make sure you didn't accidentally give your employee a day off for "no reason," is fucking absurd.
I imagine in most cases, it would probably even cost more to monitor, than the amount they lost for not having that employee for one day.
This isn't about making sure businesses make more money. It's about incentivizing people to vote.
My business gave extra time off to people who got Covid vaccines because it incentivizes people to do something that's good for them and for society. For people who were already getting the vaccines it was a bonus day, and it gave the push for people on the fence.
It should be the same with voting. The reality is most people do have the opportunity to vote, but choose not to take the time to do it. An extra holiday won't change that.
Giving them an extra day off no-strings attached is a good thing. They should get an extra month. But if we are specifically trying to get people to vote, then that particular day off should come with strings just like my vaccine day.
Your response to me saying how cucked we are here with regards to employee rights is this?
Wow, how magnanimous of them! I'm sure that having a vaccinated work force during a global pandemic that was killing millions to prevent your employees from dropping like flies had nothing to do with it... They just wanted to give you guys that "bonus" day. How sweet of them.
Yeah - how dare they do something that's good for the employees AND their bottom line! The nerve!
Though actually not true because I work in municipal government where there is no profit or shareholders. If we get extra money it goes into things like overdue infrastructure repair.
It's not good for all employees, only the ones who vote.
Makes me think of the people who want to enforce drug testing on welfare recipients. Costs more money to enforce than if they had just given them the benefits in the first place. But then we would be giving it to "people who 'shouldn't' have it," or "don't deserve it," and we just can't have that can we?
It's just a bullshit worldview.
Give everyone the day off, encourage voting and make sure that they know that it's literally the reason they have that day off from work. Because of the people that were voted in, etc. Show them how important it is... Then hope they vote. Change the culture around it.
Again, unless you want to do it like Australia and make it compulsory.
Other than that, you're literally just wasting money just to make sure a bunch of people don't have off work who (you deem) "don't deserve it." Nah, fuck all that. Just let people enjoy their fucking life, Jesus Christ.
Edit: now that I think about it... I have to wonder how you'd feel if this were a religious holiday, and only the people who observe (and we're talking, go to services, etc.) and can prove it, get those days off... Sorry atheists and agnostics, no Christmas or Easter holidays for you. And only the kids of the practicing Jews get off school for Ros Hashanah.
Or to keep it secular, only black people should get off for Martin Luther King Day right? Or to be even more specific, black Americans who are descendants of slaves. If you cannot prove that, sorry, no MLK Day for you.
Let's just start an entire new federal agency meant to confirm that only the people who are associated with each holiday can get that day off. Because there's gonna be a whole lot of paperwork. Lots of jobs though, I guess!
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...
weird, I've gotten one of those stickers every time i've voted my entire life. i thought it was just a given.
I've only ever gotten a sticker twice...plus you can buy rolls of them online.
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.
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.
None of which was the point of the question, but thanks for the added perspective.
Unless the day off can only be used on voting day I think people will use it for their own purposes.
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
Yeah, but those aren't ubiquitous.
If you live in a suburb or rural area you can count on a dozen nearby polling stations and a 5 minute in and out.
If you live anywhere that supported the confederacy and might vote blue then you might have to deal with a 4-5 hour wait, coupled with provisional ballots that are not counted, voting roll purges, and other minor issues.
I guess what I'm saying is those crazy lines aren't too much of an issue so long as you try to vote in a part of the country Hitler himself didn't write of as an example of genetic enforcement to follow in Mein Kampf.
Thanks for the clarification!
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.
Yeah, because in France they're a hair trigger away from setting shit on fire, like all the time.
If that's what it takes, I guess
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.
If only we had some type of... I don't know what the word for it would be... Well, some sort of system that the people in a society agree to be governed by that could force these businesses to respect this holiday...
Oh well.
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.
Never got paid holiday pay as a medic, firefighter, or county technical rescue. It was all just another day - 24/7/365..........
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.
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.
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.
You can't have a decent media if it has been privatized, monopolized, and staffed with reactionaries.
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.
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....
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.
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.
Agreed to your last statement. I have only ever voted by mail in ballot and anything else seems inhumane.
TBF, the only thing stopping you from not wearing pants to the polls is the weather.
Make voting take a week and limit campaigning to 90 days before the end of that week.
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?
We’ll all be dead by then
Actually brilliant
Except that elections happen every year....
Right? I guess I shouldn't be surprised by how little Americans seem to understand about their own government... But boy is it depressing to see. Especially when its younger people.
It's really not.
... That sounds like it would be great.
Midterms: "Are we a joke to you?!"
The Republican Party benefits from low voter turnout, so they'd block this at every opportunity.
they've publicly admited they cant win fair elections.
Of course it should be.
Cons: wealthy people will lose money...
Yes.
It's almost as if people should be paid enough and have enough PTO to live and enjoy it, as well as vote.
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.
It should be
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.
When you see the reports/photos/videos of lines, take note of the location of the polling place and what the class and racial makeup of the jurisdiction is. Maybe even take note of the racial makeup of the people in the lines.
Then look at how many polling places per capita they have compared to other areas in the state.
Trying to not have to spell it out...
Yes. Yes it should.
Or, you know, at least make it happen on a weekend, like normal countries do. The whole thing is such a weird quirk among so many other weird quirks that serve no purpose.
That doesn't solve for people who work irregular shifts and don't get weekends off, but may not have access to early or mail-in voting (which is where Republicans will take their insane restrictions if a holiday is made).
For sure, but it covers most people and it's such a simple solution that it's the standard starting point. You can go further than that, but this is the least you can do.
I think a combo covers everything if the Dems get a voting bill through:
That would cover pretty much anything (I think?).
Aren't those exact people usually also working on a federal holiday as well?
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.
I don't really think of Thanksgiving in its original context at this point. I think of it as a day for family and togetherness. I wish we could just rebrand it as that and drop all of the fake, sappy stories about pilgrims and native americans getting along.
I was thinking either Memorial Day or Veteran's Day, since they seemed kinda redundant. Alternatively, President's Day being moved to the election day seems like it would make sense.
Thanksgiving is practically a religious holiday at this point. Can't deprive Americans of their celebration of gluttony and genocide. There's a parade and everything.
We always have elections on a Sunday (you go to your assigned voting place, usually a school) and there's I think two week period where you can vote in (official voting places placed in) libraries, malls, all kinds of places and you can pick whichever so there's ample opportunity for everyone. I think mail-in system where you can vote at home and deliver the vote by mail is just for those who are abroad. There's also the possibility of having people visit you at home to facilitate voting, meant for those who can't move.
Here in Brazil elections are always on Sunday, vote is mandatory and everybody vote the same day. By 8pm all votes are counted and the result is known.
I always vote after lunch and it's always empty. Because the vote is electronic, it's very fast. I get there (we usually vote at schools too), show my photo ID (I use the ID app on my phone), use my fingerprint to unlock the voting machine, type the numbers and confirm, they return my phone and give a coupon to prove I voted and then I go eat a meat pastel and ice cream.
We don't use electronic voting machines here. It's all paper ballots. Vote counting is done for pre-voting day ballots so that the result of those is known at 20.00 and only then (at the same time the voting places close) they start counting the voting day ballots (well technically it's the preliminary count after which the ballots are send to a recount for next day to check for errors). Calculating is done by hand but the result is known usually at around 23, before the recount and the actual final result is confirmed on next Wednesday at 18.00. But that's a formality.
After voting we usually do coffee or some do beer. "Election coffee" or "election beer" we call it.
Unless they're going to do something like require octuple pay for anyone working on an election day, which in turn would fuck up the financial math of any business thinking about opening that day, making it a holiday won't fix anything.
Mandate vote by mail federally. While your at it, copy Mexicos voter ID system and give everyone free voter ID's.
Doesn't matter either way as the only people guaranteed off on federal holidays are government employees.
Shithole country. Honestly, together with the issues like voter roll purging and winner takes it all. How can you take this "pro/con" discussion even seriously?
The real question should be why the US is so undemocratic, what the forces are that drive this minority rule and prevent a more free and open society.
Yes it should be a holiday! Why are we even talking about this?
Christmas doesn't create challenges for hourly workers, and noone that matters cares if it costs companies millions.
Here in Canada All employees who are Canadian citizens and 18 years of age or older are entitled to have three consecutive hours off on Election Day to vote. Voting hours in the Eastern time zone are from 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. If an employee’s hours of work do not allow for three consecutive hours off within this period, the employer must give them sufficient time off to meet the requirement of three consecutive hours.
Just make it a Saturday and make it quick and easy to vote?
Then people can go to work before or after voting if they need.
There is zero reason not to have more holidays.
In Canada every Canadian is guaranteed four contiguous hours off work on election day while the polls are open to vote.
would definitely ensure higher turnout in most locations,but as is policy where i work no days off for holidays other than xmas and tday.
OK, so make all voting days a holiday?
I forget what country it is, but one has a rule that you can only vote in your place of birth on a holiday. So, people come together for reunion and they all go out and vote. Swell idea, IMO.
Uh...not a great idea.
Suppose my parents made the decision to move to Alaska instead of Colorado for my birth, then moved to Colorado where I grew up. I'd be asked to vote in Alaska's elections, despite having no ties there, no stake in the outcome, and no reason to care about the issues. And if I'm to vote a Colorado ballot, why not let me vote that ballot from Colorado? If I want to go to a family reunion, I'll go to a family reunion. I don't need to be forced to go to one by being forced to vote in a state I no longer live in.
this is the pinnacle of stupid writing. Calling this "Research" is nonsense. You should have the day off if you have an "I voted" sticker. Not only should election day be a day off but so should:
Why? Just make voting more accessible. In my country, the Netherlands, there are just many voting locations that open early in the morning and close at 9PM. Like during an election day there are 3 voting stations within a 5 minute walk from my home and there are voting stations at every major train station. You can vote almost everywhere. No excuse to not vote even if you have to work that day.
There is no point in making Election Day a holiday when you don’t fix voting accessibility first. Why create a holiday and then waste it for standing in line?
American businesses are not required to give employees paid time off to vote, and the required amount of time that they have to allow is just a couple hours. So if someone works far away from where they live and/or has 12 hour shifts or something, it becomes a choice of getting paid or getting to vote. And the Republicans have done a fabulous job of making sure that voting is as time-consuming as possible in poor and non-white districts by limiting the number of polling sites. Some people have to wait 8+ hours to vote, and the Republicans have made it illegal to give people who are waiting in line food or water.
Also, you have to vote in the precinct you live in/are registered in. You can't go to just any polling site on election day.
Improving voting accessibility will solve that. It takes 10 minutes for people to vote if there is a line in my country. They can also only vote in their own municipality and don’t get paid time off to vote. Making it a holiday still doesn’t solve the 8+ hours waiting time. People still won’t vote if they have to wait that long, they would rather enjoy their day off.
If it's a federal holiday, a lot of employers offer (or, in some cases are required) to give increased pay on holidays, usually time-and-a-half or double-time depending on overtime laws. The increased rate of pay could make up the difference for the list wages from the unpaid time off for voting.
Which is it?
Try reading it again, maybe a little slower, and I think you'll get it.
I understand it as "time allowed for voting is not paid".
Some states require businesses to give workers a minimum of a certain number of hours to vote, but there are no requirements for that time off to be paid. This means that, even if the workers are allowed to leave to go vote, it is unlikely that they will be paid for those hours, and for some people, missing a couple hours off of a paycheck can be a very big problem.
It you could vote on Sundays? At least two other countries do that
Yes. There are no drawbacks.
IMHO, yes, but you have to bring proof of having voted the next work day for it to count. And the State should respond to mail-in ballots with "I Voted" stickers - mail in ballots have deadlines, so maybe It'd be enough time for a round trip. Or if you drop off the ballot at a post office, postal workers can hand you a sticker. More money for the USPS; it's a win-win. Change the I voted sticker each year; counterfeiting would be more work than it's worth.
There'd be forgeries, lax enforcement, whatever; the point isn't to have a hard enforcement, like money, but just to encourage people to vote.
We'll never be a country that mandates voting, like some do, but anything that encourages people to vote is a good thing.
P.S. if we can't convert to a 4-day work week country, I think we should slowly create more federal holidays that fall on specific week days, until we have 52 of them.
Oh I love this but let's make the incentives better.
All of this can be done today. Voter participation information is actually available at the local level. It's why I always get fliers for Republicans since I vote in their primaries. (My vote is more effective there than in the Democratic primary)
If this is your platform, I'll vote for you. Throw in a little RCV, and I'll canvas, too.
I want to get rid of FPTP voting but a recent veritasium video has me wondering if we should try something better than RCV.
Not saying I would vote no on RCV, but if we're going to change the voting method, let's do it in a way ensures that the people are best represented.
There are many better systems than RCV, but if has two things going for it:
With all due respect to Veritasium, perfect here is definitely the enemy of good. RCV is maybe the least good of many better-than-FPTP options, and has flaws; however, any argument for doing better than RCV based on "it has flaws" will always end up with arguing that we should use the Condorcet method, which would be impossible to approve and possibly impossible to implement.
The next best thing to RCV is far less of an improvement over RCV than RCV is over FPTP. I'd rather have STAR, but all of these options are broadly unknown, difficult to explain, and more complex to execute by hand than RCV. I'd rather have something, than stay stuck on FPTP.
I don't disagree one bit.
I just want people to realize that anything is better than FPTP but we shouldn't stop at RCV. We should relentlessly pursue democracy, ensuring that The People are represented in the most accurate way possible.
So yes, vote for RCV. But don't let it be the destination.
Agreed 🤝
Yes.
Moving on.
Even easier. Make the shit electronic. Stop pussy footin around and make it available on the Internet.
I know enough about the internet to know that this would end up being a bad idea. Not to say that there isn't a way to correctly implement it (I honestly don't know). But even if there is, should we trust them to do it correctly? Our (US) government full of octogenarians?
Why? Everything is on the Internet. You can buy houses and bank on the Internet. There are scams sure. But the physical votes are still tabulated and entered into the fuckin Internet!
Right. And you trust the American government to be transparent with this process? You trust every individual involved in programming this system not to fuck it up in some way, intentionally or not?
There's just way too much that can go wrong, and more possible attack vectors that could possibly be accounted for. We already have state actors actively attempting (often successfully) to interfere with our elections. What makes you think putting it online wouldn't make that 1000x worse?
Not to mention you can't even go back and see what the people really voted. If someone sneaks a
into closed source code, you've got fuckery that will take a computer scientist to find, and no way to unfuck the election.
I prefer my paper ballot, thank you, though I'll allow it to be scanned by a computer, as long as the computer is checked for fuckery like the above first.
The voting machines that those votes are originally entered into are not connected to the Internet, they're on their own disconnected network, and for very good reason. Software is far from perfect, and putting voting software on the Internet would immediately make it a target from attackers all over the world, and they would absolutely be hacked and manipulated.
I worked in an election. The tabulations are very much uploaded into a main frame.
For record keeping purposes, sure, not as a means to conduct the actual election. In a lot of places, paper ballots are still manually counted. Most places have a Scantron-type device that scans your filled-in ballot, but those machines are not Internet-connected. If they are networked, they're on their own separate air-gapped network.
Not where I was working. 90 percent were electronically entered. And I didn't even work in the most affluent county in my state. Electronic voting is very prevalent.
The electronic machines used to cast* votes are not connected to the Internet.
One more absolutely not.
Let's follow two votes. Vote #1 was cast in Colorado.
Vote 2 was cast in Louisiana.
I'm going to fight hard for my system, buddy. You can keep your internet voting.
As a programmer I really really don't think this is an idea we're capable of implementing in a way that's safe/secure/etc.
See also: https://xkcd.com/2030/
You aren't the only programmer in the world
Yes, but I believe e-voting being a bad idea is the common opinion among not just programmers but cybersecurity professionals specifically as well.
I mean, you're wrong lol
So laughably wrong. It's a great idea because it puts the power in the people. It is the only equalizer left. The possibility of the outcome greatly outweighs the challenges to make it work.
There are plenty of cyber sensitive occupations that rely on the Internet and work. The fact that this one thing is "not possible" is like giving up without any effort whatsoever.
I'm not wrong lmao. I didn't say it was impossible, I said the government is not capable of implementing it in a way that would be secure. Put up or shut up, don't just claim that I'm wrong because you said so lol
The importance of the service is also exactly why it would be one of the most attacked online systems in the entire world. Even relatively secure systems are hit with zero-day attacks that can entirely compromise them. The US government especially is technologically outdated and I wouldn't trust them to so much as install security updates.
I mean I know you think aren't. But you are. It's cool. You know programming to an extent. But there is PLENTY of evidence to show that you are. There are many other applications in use today that show it's feasible. It's like arguing the sky isn't blue because you have your sunglasses on. Sure. It's in your wheelhouse. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. It should be. It would equalize everything.
That's just rude lol, you know nothing about my experience. My personal opinion isn't even super relevant here though; if we look at the professional consensus, they tend to agree.
I haven't seen any evidence that you have any understanding of this topic at all. You keep saying we should do it because it would be good-- which it would be-- but wanting something to be easy doesn't actually make it easy. You say there's plenty of evidence; SHOW IT then if you're so confident! I'll even start, here's an article by the AAAS with sources: https://www.aaas.org/epi-center/internet-online-voting
The problem isn't that it can't be done, the problem is that it can't be done without disruption.
If eVoting were a thing, how long do you think it would take for 4chan to completely fuck it up?
And I don't mean in a "In a stunning upset today, the new President is write in candidate Boaty McBoatface", I mean in a DDoS attack blocking ANYONE from voting.
Heck, even systems that expect mass traffic without interruption go down all the time like when a new game gets released, you think voting traffic is somehow immune to that?
Voting is too important to leave to an electronic system.
It's already done electronically. The information is just shifted to a different medium. Saying that it can't be done when it's already being done isn't factual.
The tabulation is done electronically, on machines with no internet connection.
Voting electronically involves opening a machine to the public internet and that way lies madness.
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Trump 2024!
Honey, please go sit back at the children's table. The adults are trying to converse.
It doesn't even matter anyway. Democrats threw in the towel when Biden dropped out. Like it or not, it'll be Trump for 4 years. Don't be scared, he won't end democracy.
Did he stutter? He said sit back down.
Lol. I am sitting comfortably. I just find the echo chambers of social media funny. Actually, it's not funny, mostly sad, I guess.
Im sorry you're upset.
So you're an independent thinker and not part of your own echo chamber?
Correct
Yup, confirmed MAGA. Dillusional and unhinged.