Why America votes only on a Tuesday in November

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Senator Kamla Harris is latest candidate in the long list of democrat presidential hopefuls and with Donald Trump’s re- election chances looking slim, all eyes are on America in the build up to the 2020 Presidential Elections. The Election will be held in November 2020 and a few observant political junkies would have noticed that both the recent midterms and the previous presidential election were also held in November. A closer look at the the calendars reveal that both elections were held on a Tuesday. Probably just a coincidence right? Wrong. Every election in America from 1845 has been held on ‘The Tuesday following the first Monday in November’.

So why this obsession with Tuesdays in November?

It all dates back to 1787 when the country’s founding fathers met for the constitution convention. As they met very briefly over the summer and had so much to do, they were exhausted by the end and left a lot of things undecided, including the dates for federal elections. With no fixed dates, all the states held their elections at different times which created ‘electoral chaos’. In 1845, the Congress finally decided to set a standard date for Election Day.

"The Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November" or "the first Tuesday after November 1 ” was selected for a number of reasons.

The United States was primarily an agrarian society of staunch christians at that time and most farmers needed a whole day to travel by their horse drawn vehicles to reach the voting venues, usually the county seat. Monday was ruled out as it meant people would have to travel on Sunday, the Sabbath , the Biblical ‘day of rest’ and travel would interfere with church service .Wednesday on the other hand was market day and farmers would be busy. So Tuesday it was.

At the same time, November 1st couldn’t be the date because it was All Saints Day. Most merchants were also in the habit of doing their books from the previous month on the 1st and the Members of Congress were worried that their losses or profits would unfairly influence their vote.

November was selected on account of an existing law and its convenience. As per a 1792 federal law, states could conduct their presidential elections (where they voted for their electors, these electors in turn voted on behalf of the state for the President) at any time in a 34 day period before the first Wednesday of December. And this date usually landed in early November which was ideal for the farmers as the fall harvest would be over and at the same time, winter was still some time away which meant the weather was perfect for people to make the long journey on unpaved roads to cast their votes.

America is no longer an agrarian society (only 2% of the population is directly employed in the agricultural sector) and Tuesday is a normal working day for most voters which has led many people to demand a change to the current date. The low voter turnout in America is a major casualty of having Tuesday as Election Day. In fact, between 2000 and 2012, one-fifth of registered voters who did not vote listed ‘too busy, conflicting work or school schedule’ as their reason for not voting.

States like Delaware, Hawaii, Kentucky, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, West Virginia, and the territory of Puerto Rico have addressed this problem by declaring Election Day a civic holiday, while a few other states allow people to take time off work to vote , without losing pay. Oregon, Washington and Colorado allow mail voting.37 out of the 50 states give voters the option of early voting , and 27 states allow absentee voting. Legislators on their part have tried to change Tuesday voting to the weekend but bills introduced in this regard have repeatedly failed to pass in committee .

So for the time being it seems like America will continue voting on the "the first Tuesday after November 1”.