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Rep. Steve Israel gave an interview to Politico today outlining an incredibly obvious and compelling idea to increase electoral participation:
Israel: The United States ranks about 139th of all democracies in the world in voter turnout. And one out of every four Americans say they don’t vote because it’s too inconvenient on a Tuesday. Very few people know why, in fact, elections are on Tuesdays. And so I decided not just to introduce a bill to move election dates from Tuesdays to full weekends, where they are more accessible, but to develop a public education campaign that would help generate support for the bill. So I walk around with a camera and asked people, and hardly anybody knew the answer. Do you know the answer?Politico: No, I don’t.Israel: Most people will say it’s in the Constitution, or cite some obscure reason. The reason we vote on Tuesday is because in 1845 Congress set Tuesdays as the date for federal elections because we were an agricultural economy and elections were held in county seats — that’s where the polling places were. And so, Sunday was the Lord’s day, Monday was a convenient day for farmers to travel to the county seat, Tuesday was the day they could vote and Wednesday would be the day they would travel back to the farm. And we have been laboring under that rather antiquated tradition since 1845.Tuesday voting is pretty absurd. Many folks can't get off work, or don't feel able to take the time. As a result, there's a huge rush right before the workday begins and right after it ends, creating long lines that stretch long into the morning or far into the night, and disenfranchising or discouraging untold numbers of potential voters. Moving voting to weekends is a dead obvious idea that would vastly increase civic participation without imposing any serious costs on either the Treasury or the process. Happily, there's a group committed to pushing this idea, and you can go find them, and more about the plan, at WhyTuesday.org.
