Why do we vote on Tuesday in the US??

While the US is considered to be the pre-eminent democracy by the rest of the world, in terms of voter participation, we are rank in the bottom half of developed democracies. This can at least be partially attributed to one rather insipid detail, the fact that we vote on a work day. Looking back, the deeply ingrained tradition of voting on Tuesday comes from a law going back to 1840's! This is back when it took about over a day (with a horse and buggy) to reach the nearest polling station if you were a farmer. Work ended on Friday, but travel on the Sabbath was religiously proscribed, so Tuesday was adopted as the standard day for voting. This law needs to change to adjust for the modern times, where we can use cars to get to a voting booth in a matter of minutes. Voting on a weekend, I am sure, will definitely increase voter turnout in election all over the US, which, in turn, would make our society much more democratic and eliminate any religious bias.

1 comment

Rachna Shah

Jun 21, 2017

This is such a great point that you make! There are several flaws in the American electoral system in my opinion, such as delayed times for voter registration-nonetheless, no system is truly perfect. Many countries have voting on the weekends or otherwise make voting mandatory, allowing people to take time off of work in order to vote. Countries such as Australia and Brazil hold elections on the weekends. This might not be a causation but rather a correlation, yet the voter turnout is approximately 94% in Australia in comparison to the 50s-60s in the US. Voting in the US is often a difficult effort, whether it be due to voting ID laws or simply the long lines in certain locations that tend to increase voter apathy. Allowing people to vote for none of the above candidates could also be a tentative option. What are your thoughts on these options and how they could be integrated into the US electoral system?