Election Holiday

On election night, as he was speaking to the crowd assembled at McCormack Place in Chicago, President Barack Obama took a moment to thank “all the people who voted in this election,” and, in particular, those “who voted for the first time or waited in line for a very long time. By the way” he added, “we have to fix that.”

Although there have been questions over the last few elections cycles about attempts to restrict the franchise, the inefficiency of the process for many of those who do vote is, arguably, a much more important issue; many voters in Ohio, Michigan and Florida waited in line for an hour or more yesterday before actually being able to cast their ballots.

This wait, which is simply annoying for some, makes voting onerous for others—while few people left voting lines once they entered them, it is certainly a possibility that some saw the lines outside the polling place and chose not to queue up at all.

Although many states, states as diverse as Illinois and Texas, have chosen to combat this electoral gridlock by offering some form of early voting and while both Washington and Oregon conduct their elections exclusively by mail, the fact that these methods spread thin both the place and the time of the election means that they mitigate even the illusion that act of voting is a public one and that the election itself is the decision making process of a community. Samuel Goldman offers a slightly different solution: “make the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November a federal holiday.”

He explains:

Most of the practical obstacles to voting are rooted in the fact that Tuesdays are workdays. If more citizens had the day off, they’d have less need of absentee ballots, early voting, extended poll hours, and the rest of the mess.

Declaring Election Day a federal holiday wouldn’t force private employers to close for the day. I suspect that many would, however, particularly if Election Day replaced one of the holidays already on the calendar.

The benefits of making Election Day a holiday go beyond access. Doing so would also provide an opportunity for demonstrations, celebrations, protests, and encounters with our neighbors. In the 18th century, elections were the occasion for speeches, feasts, games, and, occasionally, drunken riots. We wouldn’t want to bring back the riots. Yet there’s no reason that the rest shouldn’t become part our public culture again. Independence Day is wonderful. But I’d rather see marching bands leading the way to the polls than to the fireworks.

As it is, voting tends to be limited to the hours before and after the working day, and any celebration of the electoral process is limited to the supporters of successful candidates. Turning the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November into a national holiday, and using that day to come together not only to vote but also to publically encourage the act of voting and to praise the voter, can only serve to involve more people in the American political process.

-Josh Kopin