I think, to the best of my knowledge, it's something like $20. In the 2016 election, only 56% of voting-age Americans cast their ballots. "Election Day as a national holiday would mean things like perhaps reduced schedules for public transportation, schools being closed, hourly workers perhaps being incentivized to work more with time and a half. And even a number of the blue countries, such as Australia and Canada, are actually the product of colonialism. High turnout means that people are successfully exercising their rights-a good in itselfbut it also ensures the continuing health of majority rule. Most National Days are fixed, exceptions to this are shown below. This year, Election . Democracy on the ballot will the remaining election deniers succeed? While some states have made Election Day a civic holiday (though it primarily applies to public workers) and most have laws that require companies to give employees some time off to vote, none of the legislative efforts to enact these changes on a national level have been successful. Will the party listen to them on the issues? In the 2016 presidential election, 14% of registered voters cited being too busy or having a conflicting schedule as the main reason they didnt cast their ballots, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data. A large Democratic voting rights bill that would have made Election Day a national holiday collapsed in the Senate this year when two senators refused to join their own party in changing. [33], Henry Farber, PhD, Hughes-Rogers Professor of Economics at Princeton University, conducted an analysis of states that made Election Day a holiday for state employees. If Election Day were a national holiday, how would you ensure hourly and low-income workers would get a chance to vote? US voter turnout trails most developed countries. And it will, in turn, help strengthen the idea that businesses can and will come together for a worthy common purpose: protecting our democracy by empowering all American workers to be good citizens. [30], Solutions such as automatic voter registration, same-day registration, early voting, no-excuse absentee voting, restoring voting rights to former felons, improved civics education, and voter outreach would all improve voter participation more reliably than a national holiday. Israel and South Korea hold their elections on weekdays, but they're national holidays. 2020 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. "Election Day really definitely does need to be a holiday," she said, adding, "We need to be able to have everybody feel like they have a great stake in it.". As for Denmark, it has a national liberation day and some people celebrate international worker's day, but neither is a public holiday. Additionally, many of these individuals rely on school days as childcare for their children. A large Democratic voting rights bill that would have made Election Day a national holiday collapsed in the Senate this year when two senators refused to join their own party in changing. According to Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus, Australia adopted compulsory voting in 1924 after turnout there dropped to less than 60 percent in 1922. Countries that have weekend or holiday elections do tend to have better turnout overall. For rest of the festival holidays the declaration . October 26, 2020 / 10:57 AM Countries like Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Costa Rica, and Mexico also showed high voter turnout rates by having holidays. In 2007, the country held the world's first general Internet election. [26] Creating laws in all states that let people vote before or after work would be more effective than a national holiday, which would quickly be viewed as just another day off to enjoy. The US ranks 26th out of 32 for voter turnout among Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. This map, inspired by a Reddit thread with a similar map, shows the national days of the world's countries. Argentina has instated compulsory voting laws, but only sees about 76% voter turnout. 4. a list of voting rights provisions he would support. If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the other side of the issue now helps you better argue your position. While no state has proposed reinstating the literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses that effectively ended the burst of African-American franchise during Reconstruction, todays efforts to disenfranchise minority voters are similarly unsubtle. While countries like Belgium, Sweden, and Turkey saw more than 80% of their estimated voting-age population cast votes in recent elections, less than 56% of the estimated voting-age population in the US voted during the 2016 presidential election. So the question of how you label Ireland goes back to which holiday you consider its national day. That means the stock market will be open, and so will. [8], In the 2016 presidential election, 55.7% of the American voting-age population cast a ballot. of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents and 59% of Republicans and GOP leaners said they would support making Election Day a national holiday. Passing voting rights reform will be a crucial component of this response, as would making Election Day a national holiday. Opponents say it allows only a few states to select the president. Elections Held on Tuesdays?, britannica.com (accessed Sep. 30, 2019), Evan Andrews, "Election 1010: Why Do We Vote on a Tuesday in November?, history.com, Aug. 31, 2018, Grace Panetta and Olivia Reaney, "Today Is National Voter Registration Day. Elections Project, which is close to the complete voter . Countries like France, Germany, and India all recognize Election Day as a national holiday or hold elections on the weekend in order to increase voter turnout. Election Day is the day for general elections of public officials in the U.S. Some businesses may close, but their hourly paid employees will either have to use a PTO day or not get paid.. All this despite the fact that these types of restrictions have typically been considered illegal under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires that elections be equally open to all people. Learn how and when to remove this template message, Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, 2020 North Macedonian parliamentary election, "THE ELECTORAL CODE OF THE REPUBLIC OF ALBANIA. Again, it is not clear that this is demonstrably true but it is a widespread perception. [26] Caravanas are joyful, noisy parades of cars festooned with flags and other decorations that stream through Puerto Ricos streets ahead of an election and are credited with the islands over 80% voter turnout. ProCon.org. Explore which countries have weekend voting with Pew Research. To make Election Day a national holiday, it would take an act of Congress, and so far, no bills proposing such action have passed. "Voting is a fundamental right,. Democratic rights are much easier to end than they are to restore, so the federal government must respond to the wave of voter suppression overtaking the states with decisive, expansive action. Because of the pandemic, more U.S. voters are exploring alternatives to voting on Election Day, such as early voting and mail-in voting. People literally cannot get to the polling booth because it may close at 7 o'clock and they're working later. America is walking the knifes edge between maintaining and losing democracy. / CBS News. Before that point, states could hold their presidential elections on any day within a certain 34-day window. In 1845, when Congress established a national election day, it had to be a Tuesday because farmers went to church on Sunday, went to market on Wednesday, and may have needed a day, Monday, to get to their polling place, Gil Troy an American presidential historian and McGill University professor told HuffPost. Today in my country it is a national holiday as we celebrate the day when St. Paul converted our whole country to Catholicism in AD 60. Usually Wednesday. November 7, 2023. That's true, although the separate "National Day of Commemoration" occurs on the anniversary of the truce ending the Irish war of independence. A simple but effective change, however, could be made in election timing. The Freedom to Vote Act would make Election Day a national holiday. Proponents say teens are knowledgeable enough to vote. Others say a holiday would disadvantage low-income and blue collar workers and corporations should have better policies for voting time off. Many Americans know that Election Day is a Tuesday, but few know why. Canada's turnout is about the same as the United States', with an average of 68%, and though one canton in Switzerland has a compulsory voting law, for the country as a whole turnout is around 49%, one of the lowest rates in OECD countries. There are many ways to boost voter turnout expanding early voting, automatically registering voters, and improving civic education programs . Interestingly, 27 of the 36 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (made up largely of advanced democracies) conduct their national elections on the weekend. The US isn't the only developed country that faces this criticism, however. And that election saw the second highest voter turnout in 20 years. Saudi Arabia's marks the 1932 unification of the country. Fourth Sunday of October immediately before the end of the current mandates. Rather than make it a national holiday where inevitably people will still have to work, change election day to election week. Sometimes, specific ballot measures can influence voter turnout: in the UK, the Brexit vote resulted in a 72% turnout, slightly higher than the average of 69%. These efforts challenge fundamental values of American democracy and constitute a serious threat to the one person, one vote principle. A lot of people go to work, or they're in school during the weekday. Vote.org CEO Andrea Hailey agrees. Tuesday was chosen because it was most convenient for farmers traveling by horse and buggy at the time. To look through the stats for voter turnout for other countries, you can visit the website for the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) and explore the data. After all, what do our veterans fight for, if not for democracy itself? It can fall on or between November 2 and November 8. In 2018, the general election was held on Wednesday. A 2018 Pew survey found that the majority of Americans (65%) would be in favor of turning Election Day into a national holiday that includes 71% of Democratic-leaning voters and 59% of Republican-leaning voters. While making Election Day a national holiday or moving it to the weekend would by no means be a cure-all, it could be used in conjunction with other strategies like automatic voter registration (nearly 87% of registered voters participated in the 2016 election), restoring voting rights for formerly incarcerated people and removing other barriers such as voter ID requirements and voter roll purges that often disenfranchise people of color. For starters, the United States is rather unique in that it schedules its election day on a weekday, let alone a Tuesday. But some election analysts told CBS News that making Election Day a holiday is not a way to make voting easier. In previous elections, that percentage was even higher. Or is it an optimistic idea that would exclude already disadvantaged voters while failing to increase turnout? Congress would shore up the peoples right to vote while guaranteeing the time to engage in this fundamental right. But these days, Tuesdays are actually quite inconvenient for many Americans, particularly those who cant take time off work to cast their ballots a problem that disproportionately affects Black, Latino and lower-income voters. Opponents say kids arent mature enough to vote. The U.S. lags scores of other countries in election participation, ranking 26th out of 32 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), according to the Pew Research Center. This is the day we cast ballots to select public officials from local to the national government. "[Early and at-home voting] helps prevent bottlenecks for election administrators because it 'flattens the curve' for when ballots are cast by large numbers of voters," Perez said. All rights reserved. 26K views, 1.2K likes, 65 loves, 454 comments, 23 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from Citizen TV Kenya: #FridayNight The bill has no cosponsors, but the concept was supported by every 2020 Democratic candidate for president, excluding Mike Bloomberg and now-nominee Joe Biden. 4) The outliers are few but tell you a lot about those countries. If you make election day a federal holiday, youll have all the people who work in these types of jobs still having to work, being inundated with customers who have the day off and they wont have child care because the schools will be closed, Suzanne Lucas, who previously worked in human resources, wrote in a piece for Inc.com. Meanwhile, in Macedonia this past September, voters chose to stay away from the polls because of the proposed name change for the country. 325 N. LaSalle Street, Suite 200 [31] Same-day registration boosts turnout by 5%, and universal implementation of it would have added as many as 4.8 million voters in the 2016 election, according to Danielle Root, JD, and Liz Kennedy, JD, from the Center for American Progress. Election day or polling day is the day on which general elections are held. In fact, in Estonia, the option tovoteonlineis becoming increasingly popular. So when faced with choices like having to take unpaid time off work to vote, waking at the wee hours of the morning to vote so that they're not late to work, standing in hours-long lines with everyone else who waited until after the workday to cast their ballot, or simply not voting at all, many choose the latter. National and Festival Holiday Act, which is applicable to all establishments in the country, irrespective of under which law it is formed it is mandatory to grant leave on following 3 days, i.e. Corrections? These numbers also may be indicative of higher turnout for major elections, but may not reflect engagement in local or regional elections. Compulsory voting does not necessarily guarantee 100% turnout rates, however, though they still see higher rates than countries which do not require it. Arizona, for example, allows employees who do not have three consecutive hours before or after work when the polls are open to take paid time off to vote at the start or end of their work days. "We already know how to make voting convenient to voters that's by offering them options, like making an election season rather than election day," he said. In some of these countries, voting is compulsory, and in most of them, Election Day is a holiday. And there is no better way to secure democracy than to ensure that everyone has not only the right to vote, but also the meaningful opportunity to cast their ballots. But experts say improving voter turnout is a complicated issue that no single silver bullet strategy can solve. Managing Editor