Voting Booths

Election day has been the same Tuesday every four years since 1845, strategically placed after the last harvest of the year, and before the first winter snow storm. This system worked out well, until the United States moved away from being a primarily agrarian society. Eventually, "the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November” was no longer a convenient time of the year to hold elections because it lands directly in the middle of the work week. This is a huge concern because voter turnout and participation rate decreases due to this inconvenient timing. Most people simply do not or cannot take off a paid day of work to go vote, and instead elect to go after working hours, at the same time as everyone else who has the same idea. Some states booths even close at 6pm, right around the time a lot of people get off work …show more content…
A citizen who works for an entire day, has daily responsibilities to take care of before they can even think of voting such as cooking for the family or dropping the kids off at soccer practice. This places the once every four-year duty as an afterthought that does not take precedent to the day to day responsibilities that some hard-working families may have. With these responsibilities placed before voting, why would they want to vote? Another problem is the mass amounts of numbers that turn out to vote at the same time. Because the average American works about the same hours every day, there is a mass exodus of voters all getting off work to vote at the same time. A federal holiday opens up an entire day for voting to take place at a convenient time. Instead of only having one or two hours at the end of a long work day, the entire day is free to vote at the time most suitable to the voters, while at the same time spreading out the voters over the period of a day instead of over an hour or