Make Election Day a holiday
One way to make our nation’s warring tribes better realize what we have in common
I did something last week that I’ve rarely, rarely done in my adult life.
I dropped my ballot in a mailbox.
Call me a dinosaur, but I prefer the old-school “go to the polling place on Election Day” method of casting my vote.
I think it’s because it’s a link to my parents, especially my mother.
For much of my childhood during the 1960s, she was the Republican committee person for Ward 17, Precinct 1 of Allentown, Pennsylvania — a swing precinct in a swing district in a swing state. That meant, among many things, that she was one of those volunteers who greets and checks every voter who comes in the door. As a result, I’m one of those rare people for whom wonky statements such as “turnout was 15 percent as of 9:00 a.m.” packs an emotional wallop.
When school let out at 3:00 p.m. on Election Day, I would wander over to the polling place at the local Jewish Community Center. I’d sit with my mom, updating her index cards with names of who had voted and who hadn’t. I’d occasionally chat with the folks in line, reveling with them in the grand tradition descending directly from the genius of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and the other Founding Fathers who my teachers gushed over in school.
It didn’t matter to me if they were Republicans or Democrats or those odd people who couldn’t commit to either party. We were all Americans, darn proud of that, and contemptuous of those Commies in Russia and China who didn’t believe in the obvious virtues of democracy and self-government.
Finally, around 7:55 p.m., my mother would bring me into the hallowed voting booth itself.
Back then, our county used a Rube Goldberg-ish voting booth contraption. You walked in and reached up high to pull a lever that would close a curtain behind you, to give you some privacy. You looked at a black and gray metal wall, with several rows of levers next to descriptions of the offices and candidates’ names. You flicked down the lever for your preferred candidate. Finally, you reached back up for the curtain lever. Pull it hard and, with a mechanical whirring racket, your votes would be tabulated (sorry, no way to take them back or even to know for sure that they were recorded properly), and the curtain drew back.
Walking out felt like freedom, in more ways than one.
In the many places I’ve lived since then, I’ve made a point of voting at the local polling spot.
In Boston’s North End, then still predominantly low-income Italian-American, I walked through a gauntlet of old paisans, some giving me an evil eye for my anti-nuclear power button.
In California’s Venice Beach, I stood in line in the parking lot with a federal judge, an Oscar-winning actress, and a homeless man at the main lifeguard station, where “Baywatch” was occasionally filmed. (My anti-nuke button was more welcome there.)
In Santa Barbara, I voted in the corner of a firehouse, trying to concentrate while the bells rang and the trucks roared out.
In Denver, I’ve taken my daughter to the nearby senior center, where — much to her glee — one of the election workers is her favorite school secretary.
I’ve been fortunate to have plenty of free time to fulfill my civic duty twice a year or more. That’s come in particularly handy of late, since Denver’s polling places have been so understaffed that I’ve had to wait as much as an hour to get to my hallowed place.
A lot of people don’t have that luxury.
That’s why I think that Election Day should be a paid holiday — especially for primaries, when many fewer people vote.
I’m still for early voting and voting-by-mail for people who can’t make it on Election Day because they’re infirm or traveling or working fifteen-hour jobs from which they can’t take a break.
In fact, I broke my long-standing in-person voting tradition this year because I have a weird medical condition that makes it very difficult to stand in a noisy room for a long time. I hope you agree that shouldn’t disqualify me from participating in this year’s big election.
It means, though, that I’ll miss the public rite of voting, a ritual as important to the health of our nation as taking Communion or carrying out the Hajj is to the health of Christian congregations and the Islamic ummah.
Yes, making Election Day a holiday will likely increase the number of people who vote and that’s great. More importantly, it will elevate Election Day’s status to the secular celebration of union and self-government that it should be.
If the gods of economic efficiency deem the loss of another workday to be catastrophic for our well-being, I’d be fine with ditching President’s Day. I’d rather celebrate the people and system that elected George Washington and Abraham Lincoln than the men themselves. Not that they aren’t worthy of adulation, but they get plenty of love every time folks look at a $1 or $5 bill.
Or we could merge it with Veterans Day. What better way of honoring those who have given so much for our country than by exercising the freedoms for which they have fought? And the election cycle would only change a week or so.
Alternatively, elections could be held on a weekend day, though my “separation of church and state” warning bells go off at the thought of voters heading straight from their house of worship to the polls, with the clergy’s voice fresh in mind.
Giving voters time off from work isn’t enough, though. After all, twenty states already have laws that require employers to allow their employees paid time off to vote on Election Day, under certain circumstances. But not enough people are aware of those laws or use them.
We also must commit to spending the money needed to make polling place voting more convenient.
That means opening a lot more polling places. And it means an end to the outrageously obstructive tactics we’ve seen this year, such as, at the last minute, moving the only polling place in Dodge City, Kansas, to a spot a half-mile outside the city limits, far from the nearest bus stop.
It means hiring a lot more poll workers and encouraging a lot more volunteers. If nothing else, having Election Day be a holiday will enable folks other than the retired, unemployed or farmers finished with their harvests to help voters perform their civic duty.
I can think of plenty of potential sources of new income or reduced spending to pay for the added costs. (A windfall profit tax on TV stations benefitting from the ever-increasing quantity of election ads? Getting rid of primaries by using Instant Runoff Voting? Shifting elections for municipal offices to be held at the same time as those for state or federal seats?)
Whatever the cost (within reason), it will be worth it.
Popes don’t scrimp on cathedrals. NFL owners don’t penny-pinch when it comes to their stadiums.
Neither should we for the central ceremony of our civic religion.
In today’s strained political climate, there may be no better investment we can make than physically bringing together all races, colors and creeds — even for just a short time — to jointly celebrate that old-time religion of democracy and the revolutionary ideals of our nation’s founders.
