Opinion: Happy Tuesday!
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Granted, it’s no Super Tuesday — elections are taking place in more than a dozen cities in Los Angeles County, and the most interesting story at the polls is really how dull San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s election day is, given his recent personal scandals. But it marks a countdown to the real deal — November 4, 2008 — when local, state and federal elections all collide and voters have to sort them out on a highly inconvenient weekday.
Speaking of which, why DO we have elections on Tuesday?
That’s the question NPR’s Alex Cohen seeks to answer. It turns out, ironically, that the day was chosen for practical purposes. Elections couldn’t be held on weekends because good Christian folk couldn’t work or travel on the Sabbath, and since it could take more than a day to get to the nearest town with a poll, Monday was cutting it too close.
The U.S. government adds,
Lawmakers wanted to prevent Election Day from falling on the first of November for two reasons. First, November 1 is All Saints Day, a day on which Roman Catholics are obligated to attend Mass.
See? Who says this WASPy nation wasn’t tolerant of other faiths? Never mind that it was apparently moved to Nov. 2 to be lumped with All Soul’s Day.
‘Also,’ — minor detail — ‘merchants typically balanced the accounts from the preceding month on the first of each month.’ That makes Nov. 1 one of the few times when politics and money didn’t mix.
Of course, with the invention of cars, the weekend restriction has become almost irrelevant. In fact, it’s become a hurdle for millions of overworked Americans — which may help to explain at least part of our abysmally low turnout compared to other nations.
Some are trying to take a page out of other countries’ playbooks, be it expanding the voting period or holding elections on holidays. Either way, we need a change, since early voting can only do so much, and some question the effectiveness of Vote by Mail. It’s likely too late for next year’s election day — but perhaps the three main Democratic presidential contenders, all claiming to bring reform to the White House, will do more than just tack it onto their to-do lists.