Pattie and I have allowed the city to use our garage as the polling place for our division since last November. It helps make sure our neighbors have a convenient place to vote, so I’m happy to do it – I figure it’s part of our contribution to Get Out the Vote efforts.
Of course, I wasn’t so crazy about it this morning when I had to get up at 6:30 to finish clearing out the garage, let the voting guys in, and get Alex ready for school so Pattie could go to work and I could go teach. The logistical problems involved in having a single day of voting right smack dab in the middle of the work week really hit home today. So there I was, asking Why Tuesday? I’m a little embarrassed to say I thought it was a Constitutional issue setting the date for federal elections, but as it turns out I learned from the site above that it’s because of an 1845 act of Congress. Tuesday was apparently a good day for rural folks who had to travel to vote. Which may have been all well and good 150 years ago, but doesn’t work so well today. This is one of those situations where re-evaluating what we do to see if it makes sense would come in handy.
There are occasional rumblings about making Election Day a national holiday, which would certainly be a good start. Of course, at this point, I want the day after the election to be a holiday . . .