12:45:19
It strikes me as odd…
… and possibly a little counterproductive, for Americans to hold their elections on weekdays. Not having compulsory voting [as we do in Australia], wouldn’t it make more sense to have the vote on a Saturday when most people aren’t working? I know the polls are open late, but I’m thinking people need all the incentive they can get. Also, they wouldn’t need to be open so late if it was on a weekend. Ergo, quicker result. All our elections and referendums are held on Saturdays and it works really well that way.
Standard election day over here in the UK is a Thursday. Has been for as long as I can remember, although next week will be the first time I vote. And I’ll be doing mine by post, as I’ll be on holiday.
Postal voting has been a big thing over here in the last decade or so, as a response to ever-falling voting rates and general apathy towards politics. Maybe doing something simple like moving the polling day to a Saturday/Sunday would make things easier and thus encourage more people to vote?
Saying that, I would hate to think that people don’t vote just because it is too inconvenient to do so on a Thursday. It’s only one day every few years! And it can be done in the space of 5 minutes too, so it’s not as if you need to take an entire day off work to vote.