26
Oct
2008
Bet You Didn’t Know
Even I didn’t know this!!!
From takeyourkids2vote.org:
Do you know why Election Day is always the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November? Don’t worry. Most people don’t. That day was picked by Congress in 1845 because most Americans were farmers back then; and by November, most of the crops were in.
But, why Tuesday? That‘s because most of the people who lived in rural America had to travel quite a long way by horseback or carriage to reach the county seat where they voted. Monday wasn’t a good day because many people would need to begin traveling on Sunday, and that would have meant missing Church.
Why the first Tuesday after the first Monday? Lawmakers wanted to prevent Election Day from falling on the first of November for two reasons. First, because November 1st, the day after Halloween, is All Saints Day, a Holy Day for Roman Catholics. Second, since most merchants were in the habit of doing their books on the first day of the month, Congress chose a day that wouldn’t interfere with the business community.
Fascinating!
The lesson to be learned in this post is that I told you something incorrect in class:
I told you that the election date (the first Tuesday after the first Monday) has been set since the constitution was ratified by the original thirteen colonies. Obviously that’s not correct!
So after I did some historical research on this subject, I got to thinking about election day.
Even though Tuesdays made sense for elections in 1845, do they make sense 163 years later?
Tuesday, a work day, can be a difficult day for voters to make time to get to the polls. Saturday may be a more advantageous day to have election day. Citizens are less likely to be at work on a Saturday (although a significant amount of the populous does work on weekends) and more likely to be available to vote.
In 1845 election day was moved to Tuesday to encourage rural voters to make it in to town to vote. If election day was originally moved to Tuesday to encourage voting, why not move it to a day like Saturday in order to encourage voting?
In addition, other than tradition, why do we vote in November?
Why not vote the day after taxes are due, April 16th? This would surely encourage a more fiscally responsible government. Or why not vote on July 4th while patriotic spirits are high? Election day on July 4th would surely encourage a higher level of voter participation. Right?