Election Day is right around the corner, and people from all over the country will be going to their polling places to cast their ballots. For those who have to work or go to school, however, they may struggle to fit voting into their schedule. That’s not a good thing, and more importantly, it’s completely avoidable. We need to make Election Day a national holiday.
According to Democracy Chronicles, many developed nations like France and Germany either have Election Day as a national holiday or hold elections on weekends. Many of the countries that do this have higher voter turnout than the United States; in the 2016 presidential election, U.S. voter turnout was 55.7 percent, and a survey by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance found that the U.S. ranked 139 out of 172 countries in voter turnout with many of the countries ahead of us being developed ones. For a country that prizes democracy and representative government as much as we do, such a ranking should be unacceptable.
However, before we analyze the solution, we should step back and take a look at the cause of low turnout. Why don’t more Americans vote? As I mentioned before, work and school obligations are one reason. As Business Insider explained, prospective voters who have to work face a difficult position if they want to vote on Election Day: wake up extra early in the morning to vote before work, use a vacation day, take unpaid time off of work (if possible) or wait in a long line to vote after work. With an Election Day holiday, workers wouldn’t have to make that choice and could vote without worry. There are other factors surrounding America’s comparatively low voter turnout of course, but that’s a story for another column. The larger point is that hurdles to voting, including the lack of an official Election Day holiday, limit who can vote and call into question whether everyone truly has the right to vote like we’ve been taught in our civics classes.
The premise of making Election Day a national holiday is simple: Election Day would join the ranks of federally recognized holidays like Christmas, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Columbus Day, giving employees of the federal government the day off with regular pay. While few people are directly employed by the federal government (about 2 percent of the total workforce as of 2015, according to The Washington Post), most employers give their employees the day off on many federal holidays, like Christmas. However, many employees work on other federal holidays, such as Columbus Day, so considering the civic importance of a holiday like Election Day, a law mandating a paid day off for certain employees may prove necessary.
To be fair, there are other solutions to the problem of low turnout. Vote-by-mail ballots are also a useful solution and one that I think more people should know about; in fact, three states (Washington, Oregon and Colorado) do their elections entirely by mail. Early voting is also a good option; early voting on the weekend means those who have to work or go to classes can go to the polls then, although the lines may be long due to how many other people are doing the same. Finally, 30 states have enacted legislation mandating that employers give their employees at least a one hour break (paid or unpaid) to go vote. Sadly, Florida is not one of those states.
Making Election Day a national holiday would go a long way toward increasing voter turnout, and as recently as 2015, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont) proposed a bill to make Election Day a national holiday (called ‘Democracy Day’); sadly, no further action was taken on the bill. However, there are other steps we can take in the meantime. That would include increasing promotion of vote-by-mail ballots and additional assistance in requesting them, more polling places for early voting, pushing private companies to offer time off on Election Day and Florida joining 30 other states to offer leave during the workday for voting. These changes may be more achievable in the short-term, and voters should push for such changes and gradually build up to an Election Day holiday. With time, the United States could become a more perfect union.
Jason Zappulla is a UF history junior. His column appears on Mondays.
