Tinsel-covered decorations and sales are in full force all around the nation as Christmas is right around the corner. Dollar General down the way from the house didn’t even make it past Halloween this year before they began to push out the variety candy bags and replaced them with the red and green decorations for the holiday season.
We barely get to celebrate July 4th and summer before Santa starts showing up for Christmas in July, then you might get to enjoy a few weeks more of the August heat and Back-to-School before the Christmas lights show up on an aisle of Walmart after Labor Day, then it takes over full force come November 1.
Made-up holidays have even become popular AROUND CHRISTMAS. Tree Lightings and Parades through downtown, holiday markets and of course BLACK FRIDAY.
We barely get to enjoy the spooky season around Halloween and eat up all the candy just collected, much less have Thanksgiving without the plethora of new Christmas-themed ads showing up in the middle of Turkey Day football.
Think about all the holidays we spend out of work for various reasons: New Years, MLK Day, President’s Day, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving (depending on where you work, you might get the Wednesday before and Friday after off too) plus Christmas Eve (unless you work for Scrooges,) Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve (again, Scrooges.)
That’s give our take between 11 and 16 days off a year just for holidays, many of them Federally-mandated holidays. Time taken off for a variety of reasons between days off created during the depression for banks and those that have longstanding tradition on the calendar from time in memoriam.
All of these holidays have their importance in one way or another, but a day we all SHOULD HAVE OFF isn’t even considered.
So I want to ask everyone a simple question: Why don’t we have Election Day off?
I have heard the following complaint from local, state and federal officials in my time as a journalist: not enough people take part in elections or even care about who is running the show. Yet they make it absolutely a real pain in the rear end for actually casting a ballot.
First you have to go through a registration process that honestly should just be submitted on your behalf whenever you put in a change of address form to the Post Office, or completed upon your 18th birthday using your DMV information. There’s no reason other than “it’s hard” that couldn’t be accomplished.
When you do vote, you better have a state-issued Photo ID with you or you ain’t casting a ballot today. Whether it be a driver’s license or a passport, or something like an ID card, you better have it on you when you go cast a ballot so they can scan and you sign for the ballot.
If you’re lucky, you don’t have to wait in line to vote on touchscreens that are probably the easiest part of voting these days. At least we don’t have the punch card system and have to worry about hanging chads.
I’ve not even touched the problems of provisional ballots, or new voter challenge laws on the books, courts allowing for voters to be removed from rolls for various reasons, etc.
Voting is a privilege in this nation, one that we all cherish and consider a fundamental part of American identity that we can point to and say “this is what makes us who we are as a nation.”
Election Day fell on the first Tuesday in November for voting in the early days of the Republican government due to the rural nature of society. A town’s Market days usually fell on Tuesdays, and because churches provided a Sunday social occasion families would pile into wagons and “head to town” from their farms to pray on Sunday, stick around for Monday, then vote on Tuesday. Cities didn’t have this problem, and as the nation grew and technology changed the nation wasn’t as reliant on the need for gathering everyone over several days to a central location to vote.
Access to the ballot box grew too over the centuries, and voting technology is such today that it allows for millions to vote in a single day without complication. No system is perfect, of course and there is still plenty of apathy among the nation that ensures elections remain closer than they ever should.
Yet the answer isn’t in creating additional rules and regulations on voters and the running of elections, it is in something I think would increase participation and kickstart a needed injection of goodwill into the nation and leaves everyone with two choices: move election day to a weekend day OR turn the first Tuesday of November into a national holiday.
I see the former isn’t really an option for two main reasons: no one will give up Saturday for partying, and Sunday for praying. Want to upset major chunks of the electorate and DECREASE voter participation? Mess with someone’s off day and church day.
Thus the solution needs to be centered around turning the first Tuesday of November into a National holiday. We’ll even call it Election Day, and make a big splash out of going to cast a ballot. Businesses could do Election Day sales the same as they do for President’s Day or Memorial Day, and none of the fanfare of fireworks on Independence Day is needed.
I’d be fine with busting out the barbecue for Election Day for a brisket or pork butt, or weather-depending some chili or turn it into a Taco Tuesday-themed day. Heck, usually Election Day meals revolve around pizza for me since it is a work day no matter what I end up having on my schedule.
Most holidays are work days for me, to be honest. There just isn’t enough hours in the day to ever get ahead and schedule items to post ahead of the start of the holidays. Maybe this year I’ll make it work out…
But back to the original point: I’d even be willing to trade an off day. I’ll give up President’s Day in February or Columbus Day in October for Election Day off for most of the country.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be a Federal holiday in the traditional sense because of poll workers required to be on the clock, but give them a day in trade when it makes sense for them to be off: an extra few days for a spring break could also be appropriate.
A lot of moving parts would have to be figured out: how would you get everyone to the polls since some people need to work (like cops, firefighters and paramedics for instance) and others will be hesitant to take off (low wage workers at fast food restaurants and waitresses living off tips, for instance) and further more, some businesses will refuse to close (convenience stores.) Early voting would still be needed to accommodate folks like that, but even that system wouldn’t be perfect.
No matter what we were to decide on such an issue (and I 100% believe we should consider making Election Day the next national holiday,) it doesn’t guarantee greater participation among people in the process of deciding our leadership. Many more in the past 8 years have voted than ever before, and we look on track to break records again this year in participation across the nation.
Yet it is the off-year elections – the midterms, the off-year local votes on councils, commissions and such – that matter as much as the Presidential vote, if not more so considering the amount of influence on life a local politician might have directly over residents versus the decisions made on a national level day-to-day.
Giving people the day off to go vote for Mayor might mean more in the long run for our nation than having the day off to go vote for President.
So when you next have opportunity and know someone in politics? Bug them about this idea to give a majority of the nation off for Election Day.
I think we need it.
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