Should Election Day Become A Federal Holiday? Weighing The Benefits And Drawbacks
Should Election Day Become A Federal Holiday? Weighing The Benefits And Drawbacks
Election Day is always held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November during an election year. Congress codified this tradition in 1845 to account for
Is it time to make Election Day a federal holiday? 🗳️ 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!
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Easier solution than trying to have a single day off for everyone:
Since early voting is a thing, all employers should be required to give workers 1 paid flex day during voting season so they can vote.
They can even tie the flex day to evidence that they actually voted, so it truly encourages voting instead of just being an extra day off.
I don’t really think we need to police the extra day off. If someone was unable to vote that day for some reason, they shouldn’t be penalized.
While I agree we should police it, have you ever worked for a big corporation, they are going to police it...
The law can be written to prevent that easily. One flex day off for every employee during the election season is mandatory to give people the opportunity to vote.
That is how every other major holiday is handled. Just because I get a winter holiday break every year doesn’t mean that my employer checks to see if I was Santa eligible before I get the vacation.
The goal isn't to get people an extra day off, it's to get them to vote.
When I go to a conference or take paid time for education I'm required to prove what I was doing.
We should also fight to get people more general vacation time, sure. But as far as mandating days off for voting I think it makes sense to make sure that they use that day to vote.
Otherwise we'll just end up with a lot of cheap weekend cruises popping up to take advantage of all the extra holiday time around elections with no increase in voter turnout.
God forbid Americans get more holiday time, especially considering that the rest of the developed world tends to get a lot more than we do.
The purpose of a day off for election day is to get people to vote. Tying it to a requirement to actually vote (not even necessarily on the same day) gives an incentive to vote instead of just another day off.
They should be getting an extra month of vacation time in general, absolutely, but that has nothing to do with incentivizing voting.
I got extra time off work for having a Covid vaccination. Since I was getting vaccinated anyway, it was just more time off just like a voting day would be. But for some people, the extra time off was enough incentive to get them to go to Walgreens and get a shot. If they'd just given everybody extra time off for Covid vaccinations without us having to prove that we did it, then those who weren't planning to get the shot still wouldn't have. And the point was to get people vaccinated for public health.
The problem with that is that it incentivizes people who are uninformed about politics to vote randomly for a day off. Our issue is not that everyone needs to vote, but that everyone who chooses to is able to and not hindered by a company.
If they want to incentivize people to get informed and get involved, then they should abolish the electoral college so people will feel like their votes count in states where they are a minority. Reinstating voting rights for felons would also get people motivated, because people who have been burned by the system may want to work to change it.
Even with all that, there will be people who do not care, do not learn, and will not want to vote, and they should be given that option. They have deemed themselves unqualified, and that should be believed.
It's perfectly legal to turn in a blank ballot. When there's an uncontested candidate running for office in my area that I do not support our I don't know the difference between the candidates I simply don't select a candidate for that position while voting for the candidates and issues I do understand.
Yes, but if someone intends not to vote at all, why waste their time and make lines longer by having them turn in a totally blank ballot?
If inconveniencing a hundred thousand lazy assholes into spending 5 minutes turning in a blank ballot is the cost of getting thousands of other people to engage in the political process I think that's pretty cheap.
Especially if we do it annually and tie it to local elections. I'm a government employee and I've seen local elections with high stakes affecting a hundred thousand people get 50 votes total.
God, Americans are so cucked when it comes to employee rights (I'm an American). Oh no, someone might get an extra day off!? Disgusting!
I get your point, and yes people should use the day to vote. But trying to mandate it, or police it in some way to make sure you didn't accidentally give your employee a day off for "no reason," is fucking absurd.
I imagine in most cases, it would probably even cost more to monitor, than the amount they lost for not having that employee for one day.
This isn't about making sure businesses make more money. It's about incentivizing people to vote.
My business gave extra time off to people who got Covid vaccines because it incentivizes people to do something that's good for them and for society. For people who were already getting the vaccines it was a bonus day, and it gave the push for people on the fence.
It should be the same with voting. The reality is most people do have the opportunity to vote, but choose not to take the time to do it. An extra holiday won't change that.
Giving them an extra day off no-strings attached is a good thing. They should get an extra month. But if we are specifically trying to get people to vote, then that particular day off should come with strings just like my vaccine day.
Your response to me saying how cucked we are here with regards to employee rights is this?
My business gave extra time off to people who got Covid vaccines because it incentivizes people to do something that’s good for them and for society. For people who were already getting the vaccines it was a bonus day, and it gave the push for people on the fence.
Wow, how magnanimous of them! I'm sure that having a vaccinated work force during a global pandemic that was killing millions to prevent your employees from dropping like flies had nothing to do with it... They just wanted to give you guys that "bonus" day. How sweet of them.
Yeah - how dare they do something that's good for the employees AND their bottom line! The nerve!
Though actually not true because I work in municipal government where there is no profit or shareholders. If we get extra money it goes into things like overdue infrastructure repair.
It's not good for all employees, only the ones who vote.
Makes me think of the people who want to enforce drug testing on welfare recipients. Costs more money to enforce than if they had just given them the benefits in the first place. But then we would be giving it to "people who 'shouldn't' have it," or "don't deserve it," and we just can't have that can we?
It's just a bullshit worldview.
Give everyone the day off, encourage voting and make sure that they know that it's literally the reason they have that day off from work. Because of the people that were voted in, etc. Show them how important it is... Then hope they vote. Change the culture around it.
Again, unless you want to do it like Australia and make it compulsory.
Other than that, you're literally just wasting money just to make sure a bunch of people don't have off work who (you deem) "don't deserve it." Nah, fuck all that. Just let people enjoy their fucking life, Jesus Christ.
Edit: now that I think about it... I have to wonder how you'd feel if this were a religious holiday, and only the people who observe (and we're talking, go to services, etc.) and can prove it, get those days off... Sorry atheists and agnostics, no Christmas or Easter holidays for you. And only the kids of the practicing Jews get off school for Ros Hashanah.
Or to keep it secular, only black people should get off for Martin Luther King Day right? Or to be even more specific, black Americans who are descendants of slaves. If you cannot prove that, sorry, no MLK Day for you.
Let's just start an entire new federal agency meant to confirm that only the people who are associated with each holiday can get that day off. Because there's gonna be a whole lot of paperwork. Lots of jobs though, I guess!
It's not good for all employees, only the ones who vote.
Yeah. That's how incentives work.
There's government incentives to buy electric cars. My car isn't electric so I don't get to take advantage of them.
If people are essentially being paid to vote, they should vote. It's not that complicated.
A national holiday isn't an incentive, it's just the opportunity. The incentive would be a separate undertaking.
If people are essentially being paid to vote, they should vote. It's not that complicated.
And that's the fundamental problem with your point of view here. In no universe should making election day a national holiday be considered "paying people to vote." It's not a transaction.
I would love to hear about why my atheist ass should have off for Easter when I don't celebrate shit that day. Or why my white ass should have off for MLK Day or Juneteenth (oh look, they can make new holidays and it turns out it's not that big of a fucking deal).
I mean, I know why it doesn't work that way as well, but that's a different conversation. I would just like to understand how you square that up in your mind.
You're looking it as a holiday. That's not what it is. Not energy type of leave gets used by everyone.
I don't have any children and never will, so I don't get paternity leave that I 100% support being given to others.
I have been injured on the job and taken paid leave for recovery that others didn't get to take.
How are you going to have evidence of voting?
Everyone that votes gets some variant of "i voted" sticker already, that changes every where, sooooo..
I think I've gotten one of those stickers once in my decades of voting. I never outright ask, and most times they're out on the table or whatever... But no, they don't give them out like they're receipts.
However, giving each person a receipt would probably be pretty trivial...
weird, I've gotten one of those stickers every time i've voted my entire life. i thought it was just a given.
I've only ever gotten a sticker twice...plus you can buy rolls of them online.
As it is, they record who votes. It's how you can have multiple polling locations avaialbe but can only vote once.
It's not a huge leap from that to being able to prove to your employer that you voted.
Who cares about evidence of voting, you work enough days of the year, just take it for heavens sake. If I add up all days there are federal holidays in my country I get nearly 2 months worth and that is without paid or unpaid leave days you get from the employer
It's not about getting the day off: the goal is getting people to vote. Tying an extra day off to actually voting is more likely to get people to the polls
Yes, you give them the day off for election day. They know why they are off. If they're going to vote, they're going to vote. Simply giving everyone the day off is "getting people to vote."
Some sort of monitoring to make sure people are actually voting on the day is an absurd and pointless idea. If we're going that far, then just do what Australia does and make it compulsory.
Look at it like vaccine mandates. They're difficult politically and legally. I live in Texas where businesses were explicitly banned from requiring Covid vaccinations.
So lots of businesses in Texas instead tied extra "personal holiday" days to showing evidence of vaccination. It wasn't a requirement to be vaccinated, but a bonus incentive.
I'd be totally onboard with a system where they ran it as a tax incentive to vote. Better yet if it were a flat, fixed amount.
Like, in every precinct, you get your name checked off in the voter roll when you vote. It makes no record of who you vote for, only that you did, in fact, go to the polls and exercised your right.
Somehow export that data, send it to the IRS for cross referencing, and at tax time, if you voted in that year, it adds $100 to your tax return. Not a percentage of your income (which benefits the wealthy more than the poor) just a flat amount that basically is the government thanking you for voting. If you didn't vote there's no penalty... there's just no reward.
...that said, this system would depend completely on having election day become a national holiday with businesses closed, etc. Or at the very least, mandating that employers nationwide must schedule every worker for a half day, maximum, on election day, with the other half day being a paid holiday...which would cause an absolute uproar in American politics.
Don't do it on Election Day. Have our spread across early voting and election day. It'll alleviate the long waits on election day itself and allow employers to stay open since not everyone is off the same day.
None of which was the point of the question, but thanks for the added perspective.
Unless the day off can only be used on voting day I think people will use it for their own purposes.