BSCalifornia Politics A democracy is only as useful and vibrant as the people who vote in it. People, after all, are the backbone of the system. However, the United States has consistently had lower voter turnout than many other so-called “first world” nations. To be clear, there are several reasons for this, but one of the main ones is that the United States general election takes place on a Tuesday in November. In most of the country this is treated as just a normal Tuesday, but we all know that it’s not. It’s the Tuesday that decides the direction the country goes in for the next few years, and it needs to be treated as the cornerstone of American politics that it is. In order to lay out why this is so important, and why our system is set up the way it is, we’re going to have to go back in time.
Election Day, as the November general election will henceforth be known, dates back to 1845 with an act signed under then-president John Tyler. At the time, according to the website Growing A Nation: The Story of American Agriculture about 69% of the labor force were farmers. Placing Election Day on a Tuesday therefore made a lot of sense, as it didn’t interfere with the farmers’ religious holidays on Sunday, and for a good portion of the country it would be a day’s ride to their nearest polling place, so Monday wouldn’t have worked either. Thus, Tuesday was chosen as the logical spot. It was a huge success, and according to the Washington Post article It’s time to make Election Day a holiday – in law and spirit, between 1840 and 1896 voter turnout was around 80%, a number inconceivable for the modern American election. Of course, I don’t need to tell you that a lot has changed since 1845, and the impacts on the most recent election, and every election, are very real. According to the online statistics aggregator Statista, voter turnout in U.S. presidential elections has remained steady at a mean of 56.65% since 1908. This means that on average almost half of the possible electorate is not voting, seriously undermining what is the entire point of having a democracy in the first place. The results are even worse for non-presidential elections, with a sharp drop in participation. California itself sees a steady drop in participation during non-presidential years, according to a graph by the Public Policy Institute of California. The same source also indicates that Californians even see this as an issue, with 84% saying “it is a problem that many people who are eligible to vote in elections don’t always do so.” These same people also overwhelmingly support initiatives such as automatic voter registration at the DMV and more widespread use of the vote-by-mail system. Another Washington Post article, Would turnout go up if we didn’t have to vote on a workday?, says “According to the Census Bureau, registered voters cited conflicting schedules as the most common reason for not voting in 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014, and as the second most common reason in 2016.” There are people out there who want to vote and want to participate, but Election Day being on a working Tuesday is posing serious challenges. These challenges are not evenly distributed either, with an NPR report stating “Based on 2010 voter turnout, the Census Bureau found that people from families that earned more than $100,000 were twice as likely to vote as those whose household income was less than $20,000.” Even with voter turnout so low, it’s lower among the population that needs assistance or has a more vested interest in the outcome, but due to the aforementioned scheduling conflicts, it’s just not possible. Things may be changing, however, both in California and across the country. The results of the 2018 midterm election in California left the state’s Democratic party in a strong position in both the State Assembly and the State Senate, who have historically backed measures such as making Election Day a holiday. In fact in the wake of the 2018 midterms, Democratic Assemblymember Evan Low introduced AB-177, the newest attempt at making Election Day a statewide holiday. The U.S. House of Representatives, fresh from the election with a Democratic majority, has already introduced an anti-corruption bill that includes provisions for the holiday. The same is happening around the country as well, with Ohio, Atlanta, and Maine all looking into the idea. Not everyone is so keen on the idea, however, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell calling the anti-corruption bill, and the entire idea of an Election Day federal holiday, a “power grab” by Democrats. There’s a long way to go, but it seems the results of the 2018 election, both statewide and nationwide, caused a new surge of energy towards this issue. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to see this become a talking point for the upcoming 2020 election, given how widespread the push has become. In a normally-functioning democracy, it should not at all be controversial to propose that the day where everyone votes should be treated as special, but this has been a fight for a long time in American politics. I’m happy to see the needle moving in the right direction, but it could use even more support. Talk to your representative, both within the state and nationally, about these ideas. There is no more fundamental a right in our system of government as that of voting, and everyone, Republican or Democrat, should be on board with expanding the voice of the people as far and wide as possible. Don’t settle for the system we have now, always look for ways to improve it.
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AuthorUndergraduate student generated content. Blog posting and updating done by Kristina Flores Victor, Assistant Professor of Political Science at CSUS Archives
March 2020
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