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This is a good symbolic gesture, but making election day a federal holiday equivalent in standing with Christmas would have real and positive impact. But the l
by eganist 5y ago
This is a good symbolic gesture, but making election day a federal holiday equivalent in standing with Christmas would have real and positive impact.
But the latter never draws the votes in congress, so that should tell us how meaningless this vote truly was.
- Alex3917 5y agoMLK’s birthday should be changed to Election Day. No extra day off, and everyone goes into the polls reminded of his legacy.
- nopzor 5y agodo you mean election day should be changed to MLK's birthday?
- dalbasal 5y agoThe Queens Birthday (a public holiday) is on a different date in different commonwealth countries... so maybe not that wild a suggestion.
- robotresearcher 5y agoIt's not a public holiday in the UK. Some civil servants get a 'privilege day' off, but most Brits don't even know about this.
- saalweachter 5y agoI maintain that the Fourth of July should be made a floating holiday, on the first Thursday in July, to facilitate 4-day weekends. So this year, for instance, the calendar would go July 4 (Independence Day, Thursday) - July 1 (Friday) - July 2 (Saturday) - July 3 (Sunday) - July 5 (Monday).
- mikepurvis 5y agoThis is basically what happens in Canada, where our national holiday is official July 1st, but ends up moved to the closest Friday or Monday.
- throwawaytemp27 5y agoNo. It is on a Thursday this year. Like all holidays if it is on a Saturday or Sunday it is observed on the Monday. But it doesn’t move if it is on Tuesday Wednesday or Thursday.
- mikepurvis 5y agoThe official holiday is always on July 1, but when it's midweek, celebrations often don't get rolling until late in the day (eg [1]). I've always interpreted this as an acknowledgment that a lot of employers let people switch the day-off to a nearby Friday or Monday. [1]: https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/canada-day-2015-13-places-to-celebrate-locally-1.2446082 https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/canada-day-2015-13-places-to-ce...
- skissane 5y agoIn Australia, Queens Birthday public holiday is even celebrated on different dates in different states. Most states, first Monday in June. Queensland, first Monday in October. In Western Australia, it is not a fixed date and the state government chooses a new date each year, but usually they pick either the last Monday of September or the first Monday of October. (WA does have a public holiday on first Monday in June, but that's not Queens Birthday, that's Western Australia Day.)
- ILMostro7 5y agoDepends on the day that people say God ordained her to be Queen?
- dap 5y agoI assume they meant that the existing federal holiday observing MLK‘s birthday should be moved to the existing Election Day, So that election day is off for most people, and we still observe MLK, and there can be no objection to an additional holiday.
- SilasX 5y agoFalsehoods programmers believe about time: dates of birth are immutable. /s
- knodi123 5y agoWestern cultures moved the date of Jesus's birth to late December for political reasons. So there's precedent. Besides, I don't think MLK's birthday is that significant anyway. Nobody celebrates his birth, do they? Sure, celebrate the date of one of the Selma marches, or of the I Have A Dream speech, or the date of his death.... But in my opinion, it's sufficient to set aside a day to remember him - it doesn't have to be the one day he was statistically most likely to have eaten cake with his family.
- chickenpotpie 5y agoGiven how much of US history already excludes and edits the experience of black Americans, this would be in bad taste.
- knodi123 5y agoI'm not saying "move his birthday and change the history books". Frankly, I think it would be more respectful to move it somewhere else. Since everyone already calls it "MLK Day", there's no reason we can't use it to commemorate one of his achievements other than exiting a birth canal.
- _-david-_ 5y ago>Jesus's birth to late December for political reasons. The Bible says Jesus was born 6 months after John the Baptist. John the Baptist was born within a two week period based of the schedule of John's father priestly duties. Since we do not know the exact year Jesus was born one option is that John was born in June. (His birthday is traditionally celebrated on June 24th.) Six months after that would be December. The idea we know for a fact that Jesus' birthday was not December 25th is just plain wrong.
- Alex3917 5y ago> do you mean election day should be changed to MLK's birthday? No, I mean we go in and edit Wikipedia.
- calylex 5y agoAnd we shall make it a hate crime if anyone used his dead-birthday instead of his now only legitimate new birthday.
- kansface 5y agoThat would require an amendment, no?
- tick_tock_tick 5y agoI think you really need to put your idea in perspective. Christmas is barely the last hold out for holidays where the people who need time off to vote (retail, food service, other low wage high hour jobs) get at-least a bit of time off and that is being eaten into each year. Do you really think a federal holiday for voting would do anything but start a whole new round of election day door busters that make it even harder for these people to vote? A voter holiday is a waste of political capital that doesn't help the people who would need it. Pushing for the voting booths to be open all month long and to allow no justification mail in ballots are the kind of valuable reform we can push for rather than a symbolic holiday that would be ultimately worthless.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- spywaregorilla 5y agoI don't think any of your reasoning makes sense here. It's weirdly aggressive and is sort of a think of the children, but with poor people. But your conclusion feels like the right call. A weird 180 imo.
- Covzire 5y agoThey have a point though, every single US holiday is hell on low paid retail workers except for the few select stores that close on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Why would Voting day be any different? "Election Sale, come in and vote for savings today only!" "We're open late, stop by after you cast your ballot for saaaaavings!"
- loonster 5y agoMake it a 1/2 day public holiday starting at 12pm. This way employees will be less likely to take Monday off and have a 4 day weekend. Make serving as as working the polls equivalent to jury duty. All employers must give the days off if employee wants to work the polls.
- overlordalex 5y agoIn South Africa voting is always on a Wednesday, and I've always been told the logic is: Avoid Monday and Friday so that workers won't take a 3 day weekend. Similarly, avoid Tuesday and Thursday so that workers don't take a vacation day for a 4 day weekend - even though fewer workers would do this, it would still be a massive hit on productivity, and workers would more likely to travel and thus be outside their electoral areas Hence, midweek
- katbyte 5y agowhat is so bad about workers taking a 4 day weekend?
- tannedNerd 5y agoThey probably aren't in their hometown to vote if they take a 4 day weekend.
- xmprt 5y agoI don't think it's bad but if the purpose is to get people to vote but a lot of people are out vacationing in Yosemite then it defeats the purpose.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- loeg 5y agoTaking a 4-day vacation somewhere that doesn't have polling booths.
- rsynnott 5y ago
- CheezeIt 5y agoA federal holiday is a day off for federal employees, and maybe some banks and such, not the entire country.
- root_axis 5y agoService workers still have to work on national holidays.
- listenallyall 5y agoStop whining. Nobody has to work on any day, holiday or not. But if you choose a career in hospitality, pretty much the whole point of the job is to be at work during the general public's leisure time, like weekends, nights and yes, typically holidays too.
- dtnewman 5y agoNo. Make early voting widely available and mail ballots available to anyone who requests one. Stop thinking of elections as a single day. That’ll be much healthier for democracy.
- romwell 5y agoUm, why not both?
- skissane 5y agoIn Australia we always have elections on Saturday. Works well for most people. Of course, there is a minority of people it doesn't work well for, such as people who have to work on Saturdays, and observant Jews. And for those people we have early voting and postal voting too. I never quite understand why voting is such a controversial topic in the US. In many countries (I'm sure Australia is not alone in this) it is a boring thing that just works. You might not always like the outcome, but the process itself rarely becomes the topic of discussion. I think one thing that helps in Australia is that federal elections are completely controlled and run by the federal government. For federal elections, we don't have each state doing its own thing. Local government has no role to play in elections either. (Even local government elections are actually run by the state governments.) Addendum: I must point out when I say "controlled and run by the federal government", they are run by an independent and non-partisan federal agency, politicians don't have direct control over them. Likewise, each state has an independent and non-partisan agency to run state and local elections
- caslon 5y agoIt's largely because increased voting overwhelmingly (and almost exclusively) benefits one side in the US. While it's obviously good to have increased participation in democracy, the side that's going to more or less cease to exist if we ever get even 80% citizen participation obviously has an incentive to make voting harder.
- madeofpalk 5y agoI'm not sure how you rationalise that with the fact that Australia consistently votes in a right-wing government. UK (which doesn't have compulsory voting) also reelected a right-wing government.
- throwkeep 5y agoMake it a holiday and move the election to the day after tax day: "Elections should be held on April 16th- the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders." - Thomas Sowell
- ojbyrne 5y agoOr it would encourage politicians to make sure more of your paycheck is withheld, to make 100% sure you end up with a big refund.
- dlp211 5y agoWhat a trite and overly simplistic idea. First is the idea that Government spending is bad. Second is the idea that Government spending is controlled directly by taxes. Third is the idea that a majority of people actually pay any income tax at the end of the year. Fourth is the idea that people understand their taxes. Fifth is the idea that it is income taxes are the only taxes. I could go on, but I digress.
- User23 5y agoYou’ve not said anything obviously false, but I also don’t see you making any kind of a point. I think you’re attempting to imply one though and I’m curious what it is.
- throwkeep 5y ago> First is the idea that Government spending is bad. It's not saying that all spending is bad. The point is to have some pushback so it's not so wastefully spent. Some efficiency would be welcome by all, I think.
- User23 5y ago> Some efficiency would be welcome by all, I think. That’s a silly thing to think when observably many are benefiting from that waste and inefficiency.
- newhotelowner 5y ago> making election day a federal holiday You will have a big sale at Macy's and people will go shopping or vacation. We need 2-4 weeks of early voting & mail in ballots for everyone.
- nverno 5y agoI've never met someone that wanted to vote but couldn't for some reason. Does this actually happen to anyone in reality? This may be a case of preemptive optimization.
- egypturnash 5y agoEntire counties can get their voting stations reduced to a few places that are super inconvenient for the parts of the county that won’t vote the way the people in control of the voting locations would prefer. Mail vote is a patch for this exploit, not an optimization.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- black_yarn 5y agoMaybe your friends and family aren't the ones being targeted?
- nverno 5y agoWell that is certainly true. I seriously doubt anyone is being "targeted" however. Were you unable to vote for some reason?
- davidw 5y agoOr just do vote by mail like in Oregon. Works really well.
- ineedasername 5y agoAbsolutely. If we can have Columbus Day as a federal holiday, there's absolutely no reason why something as fundamental as voting shouldn't also be a federal holiday. But the act that practically defines the difference in power that citizens have between the US and Great Britain when we fought free of them is an act that is made inconvenient at best and close to impossible at worst for people with certain types of jobs, obligations, mobility issues etc. On paper it seems okay: polls generally open early enough or close late enough that a person can vote before or after work. Except that is so often the requirement for people that polls in some places are backed up for hours during those times, making the choice between losing money if you're an hourly worker to take extra time to vote or have to skip all together if you have a family to care for and can't wait hours to vote. Voting should be made as easy as possible. It will always take an extra detour from your daily routine but it should never require a trade off between losing money or caring for your family or any other disincentive.