Changing American's Tuesday voting day

      Our current voting system is set up so that American's have only one day to be able to cast their ballot in very important decisions, such as the Presidential Elections. In research conducted by the Census Bereau in 2010, 27% of people that didn't vote that year said that the main reason they didn't make it to the polls to vote, was due to lack of time available in the day. (Should elections be held on weekends, by NPR). 27% percent is a very large number when determining the historical outcome of our country, and in retrospect, also altering the outcomes of our personal lives. If we were to change the day that voting occurs to a weekend day, this could potentially increase voter turnout. However, people do still work on the weekends so there would still be a certain percentage of American's who wouldn't be able to vote. Another option would be if we were to open up the voting to be held on three days instead of one day. This would allow more time for people to make it over to the polls to vote. So with that being said, why Tuesday? Shouldn't the system allow one of the above changes to happen, in order to have more accuracy in elections?

      Looking briefly at the history of the Tuesday election day, in 1845, Tuesday was the most convenient day for farmers to cast their vote. On Sunday, farmers were in church and on Wednesday, farmers had taken their supplies to the market. It would take the farmers a whole day to come up from the country sides to cast their votes. So Tuesday fell on the perfect day for this to event to occur. Times have definitely changed! Currently, Tuesdays falls right in the middle of a work week for the average American. People will have to take time off from work or rush over on lunch breaks to try to cast their vote in time. If our government was willing to do right by the American people in 1845 by making voting more convenient for them, why can't they do the same thing now. We shouldn't be afraid of breaking tradition and changing things up. Change can be for the good and sometimes should be embraced. In this case, I think this is a change that our government should definitely take a second look at and do something about.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paid Maternity Leave for Both Parents

     The US government has offered many benefits to it's citizens throughout the decades. We have a great military system that protects us, freedom to choose our own sexual identities, and women's rights to choose what what she wants to do with her own body, are just three very small examples of the great benefits we receive as US citizens. As great as our system is, one major complaint that I share, along with many other parents, is the US policy on maternity leave; or should I say the lack of policy. According to Wikipedia, FMLA requires 12 weeks of unpaid leave for mothers with newborns. The policy promises to protect women from getting fired while they are recovering from such a strenuous medical situation. As thankful as I am for that, the US government can and should add a few more things into that policy.      The first thing they should change is the amount of time from 12 weeks, to a minimum of 16 weeks. According to the World Health Organization...
Read more

My Critique of Christian Smiths Fight for DACA

On September 23rd, 2019, Christian Smith posted an article on the Austin American Statesman.  Christian's article is called My Fight to protect DACA is a personal one . His argument was a heart tugging plea that the Supreme Court should not end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Christian told his own personal story about meeting a young boy at the age of 1 years old, who grew to become one of his best friends. His friend, Mateo, is an illegal immigrant protected under the DACA program. Both Christian and Mateo are extremely worried about the repercussions that could occur not only to their friendship, but to Mateo's life, and those of the general US population if Congress decides to end the DACA program. I'd like to take a few moments to critique Christian's stance and opinion of his article. I believe Christian's intended audience is the general US population, particularly those that are citizens and have friends or family members that a...
Read more