Is it time to make Election Day a federal holiday? π³οΈ 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!
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 donβt 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 canβt go to just any polling site on election day.
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.
Which is it?
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.
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 donβt get paid time off to vote. Making it a holiday still doesnβt solve the 8+ hours waiting time. People still wonβt vote if they have to wait that long, they would rather enjoy their day off.
If itβs 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.
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 βI Votedβ stickers - mail in ballots have deadlines, so maybe Itβd 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; itβs a win-win. Change the I voted sticker each year; counterfeiting would be more work than itβs worth.
Thereβd be forgeries, lax enforcement, whatever; the point isnβt to have a hard enforcement, like money, but just to encourage people to vote.
Weβll 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 canβt 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 letβs make the incentives better.
- Every company gets a tax deduction for each employee that votes
- Each locality, county, state gets a tax bonus from the federal government for every election it has and for each person who votes
- each person who votes is eligible to receive a tax stimulus the following year
All of this can be done today. Voter participation information is actually available at the local level. Itβs 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, Iβll vote for you. Throw in a little RCV, and Iβll 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 weβre going to change the voting method, letβs do it in a way ensures that the people are best represented.
Although the federal government cannot require private companies to observe holidays
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, letβs give everybody holidays off.
β¦well, I guess we need essential services like police, fire, medical, etc.
β¦and if theyβre going to work, theyβre gonna need food, so restaurants should be open too.
β¦and if they all gotta get to work, we gotta have gas stations open as well.
β¦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 βminimum wageβ 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 canβt 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.
Yes. There are no drawbacks.
Even easier. Make the shit electronic. Stop pussy footin around and make it available on the Internet.
As a programmer I really really donβt think this is an idea weβre capable of implementing in a way thatβs safe/secure/etc.
See also: https://xkcd.com/2030/
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 know enough about the internet to know that this would end up being a bad idea. Not to say that there isnβt a way to correctly implement it (I honestly donβt 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!
The voting machines that those votes are originally entered into are not connected to the Internet, theyβre 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.
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?
Thereβs 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 wouldnβt make that 1000x worse?
One more absolutely not.
Letβs follow two votes. Vote #1 was cast in Colorado.
- It starts as a paper ballot sent by standard (βsnailβ) mail from our election division to me, the voter. I am notified itβs coming.
- I mark this ballot like I would an exam, just with a blue or black pen and not a #2 pencil. Iβm going to do this in front of my computer, with ballotopedia open and key issues already marked.
- I drop this ballot off at the Election Division drop box. I am notified they received it.
- If there are problems, I am notified that I need to come in and βcureβ them.
- Once itβs accepted, I am notified, and then itβs scanned in to a tabulator. Once itβs scanned, itβs stored in a secure box.
- On Election Day, itβs counted, and the results are posted.
- If the election is close, or there is real evidence of criminality, the ballot is retrieved from its secure box and electronically or hand-counted again.
Vote 2 was cast in Louisiana.
- The voter must go to a designated voting centre on a voting day.
- The ballot is voted on an electronic machine that does not generate a paper trail.
- The vote counts are stored within the voting machine.
- If the election is stolen, there is no way to go back and check. The machines say what the machines say, and itβs trivial to engage voting shenanigans without any paper trail to track it down.
Iβm going to fight hard for my system, buddy. You can keep your internet voting.
