# Voting day a holiday?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-day-a-holiday/28695>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [August 9, 2000, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-day-a-holiday/28695 "2000-08-09T13:30:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@Jello](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jello)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2000, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-day-a-holiday/28695/1 "2000-08-09T13:30:31Z")

</div>

With the low voting turnouts and all, would it be a feasible idea to make Election Day a national holiday, therefore giving people time to vote? Not having time is one of the common arguments made by my friends’ parents. Anyway, I was just wondering what some of your thoughts on it were.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2000, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-day-a-holiday/28695/2 "2000-08-09T15:05:50Z")

</div>

Some companies, like the last one I worked for, have a special charge number for people to take half a day off on national-level elections. I used it in 1998.

When you look at the stats, it’s pretty sad what it takes to be elected president. Of 280 million Americans, only 200M are old enough to vote. Being generous, only 150M are registered to vote. Only about 50% of those registered to vote vote (75M). And the intricacies of the electoral college aside, around 50% of those that vote vote for the candidate that becomes president (37.5M). So, only about 13.4% of the US population actually picks the man who becomes president.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2000, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-day-a-holiday/28695/3 "2000-08-09T15:24:55Z")

</div>

I really don’t think a day off would make more people vote. Judging by the attitudes of the people I know who don’t vote, giving them a day off would not be an incentive to go and vote. That’s my opinion.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Baglady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Baglady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baglady)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2000, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-day-a-holiday/28695/4 "2000-08-09T19:59:13Z")

</div>

It is a holiday, in the state of Hawaii. It allowed me to work at the polling booths for a few elections.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Mojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mojo)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2000, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-day-a-holiday/28695/5 "2000-08-09T20:23:29Z")

</div>

Currently you cannot buy alcohol on election day until the polls close. What they should do is modify this- you get a stub when you vote allowing you to buy alcohol. The same thing goes for head shops, clean needles…