Why
Vote on Tuesdays?
By David
S. Broder
Thursday, November 10, 2005; A29
Young is
the co-chairman of a newly formed group called "Why Tuesday? Let's Move the
Vote." A veteran of the civil rights movement, which lobbied for the Voting
Rights Act, he came to Washington this week to express his frustration that so
few Americans -- especially young people -- exercise the right to the franchise
for which so many of his generation struggled for so long.
Young and
William Wachtel, the
"Most
of the elected officials we ask think it's in the Constitution," Young
said, "that we vote on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in
November. It's not. It was set by a statute that passed Congress in 1845,
regularizing what had been various voting days in different states."
And why
Tuesday? The debates from the time tell us that Tuesday was deemed the most
convenient day for what was then a largely rural society. Saturday was a workday
on the farm. Sunday was the Lord's day, not to be profaned with partisanship.
But it took a day for many farmers to reach the county seat in those
horse-and-buggy times, so Monday was out as well. Tuesday or Wednesday would let
them vote and return home in time for the weekend. But Wednesday was market day
for many communities, so Tuesday it became by process of elimination.
What was
a matter of convenience in 1845 is hardly the same today in our urban society.
It is a working day for most Americans, which means that they have to leave
early for work (as I did Tuesday to vote in
That
means, among other things, that polls tend to be crowded in the early morning
and the late afternoon and early evening, delaying or frustrating many would-be
voters.
Tuesday
is also a school day, and since many communities (including mine) use schools as
polling places, they either have to cancel classes or arrange for the buses to
discharge and pick up students from parking lots crowded with the cars of
voters.
All of
these problems, Young says, contribute to the low turnouts in American
elections. According to Young, the
The civil
rights champion has enlisted some significant bipartisan support for his effort.
Jack Kemp, the former Republican vice presidential candidate, Cabinet member and
congressman, has joined former senator Bill Bradley of
Young's
goal at this point is simply to stir some discussion of the idea. A bill
sponsored by Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl of
Young's
group commissioned a poll on the issue of voting time by Republican Ed Goeas and
On the
other hand, three out of four said they favor keeping Election Day on Tuesday,
while only 45 percent said they like the idea of moving voting to the weekend.
The
survey found broader support for allowing voting by mail for several weeks
before Election Day and for allowing early voting at designated locations with
no reason required for casting a ballot ahead of time.
Only one
voter in six said he or she had had difficulty finding time to vote because of
other commitments. But three out of 10 said they would be more likely to vote if
Election Day were moved to the weekend.
That last
measure was much higher for some groups that generally lag in voter turnout.
Among African Americans, 52 percent said they would be more likely to vote on
the weekend; among Hispanics, 48 percent said so, as did an identical 48 percent
of 18- to 34-year-olds. Notably high percentages of singles, working women, and
residents of
All of
which suggests that Young is right in seeing this as an extension of the civil
rights and voting rights efforts.