What's wrong with November 1st?

This is about procedure rather than strategy or the latest outrage.

Election day in the US is defined as, “the Tuesday following the first Monday in November.” The only effect I can see is that it prevents, as with this year, election day from being November 1st, bumping it to the 8th instead.

The question is why? What was there about voting on the first day of the month that the drafters of the Constitution* did not like it?

*Or the Articles of Confederation – I don’t know.

According to Election Day: Frequently Asked Questions (which I found at the online Congressional Research Service), the reason Election Day does not fall on November 1st (or on a Monday) is given below:

The timing of Election Day means citizens cast their ballots for President and Vice President
roughly one month before the formal vote of the Electoral College.

In a mostly agrarian society, holding elections late in the year avoided the harvest season and the onset of harsh weather. “Early November fell, Goldilocks-like, between the end of the autumnal harvest and the grip of winter.”

Voting on Tuesday, rather than Monday, sidestepped religious complications. “Given that voters from remote areas had to travel overnight to poll, it did not seem appropriate to require them to travel on Sunday, the Sabbath for most Christians.”

Lawmakers prevented Election Day from falling on November 1 by selecting the first Tuesday after the first Monday, which “took into consideration the fact that many merchants used the first day of the month to tally their books from the previous month.

Elections in November were considered to be a good idea because (a) the harvest was in, so this was not an unduly busy time, and (b) the more severe winter weather would not yet have set in. So people would have time to travel to the county seat and cast their votes, and weather conditions would likely be favourable for the journey.

In 1792 Congress mandated that all states should choose their electors during the 34 days before the first Wednesday in December. The first Wednesday in December can be anywhere from 1 December to 7 December; take 34 days away and the election period can start anywhere from Thursday 28 October to Thursday 3 November.

Tuesday was considered a good day to hold the vote; people could spend the weekend at home, travel to the county seat on Monday and vote on Tuesday. The first Tuesday in that election period could fall anywhere from Tue 2 Nov to Tue 8 Nov. And pretty quickly that’s what most states moved to doing; voting was held on the Tuesday falling 29 days before the first Wednesday in December.

When Congress legislated to require voting on a specified day, rather than during a specified period, they wanted to cause minimal disruption, and to require voting on the day that was already election day in most states - the Tuesday falling between 2 and 8 November. Or, in other words, the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

As the previous responses alluded to, the Constitution does not establish a specific date for election day. Rather, it gives Congress the authority to establish a national election day for Presidential electors, and to prescribe state rules for the timing of electing Representatives and Senators. Congress has used these authorities to establish the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of even numbered years as the day for electing all federal offices. For expediency’s sake, most states use the same date for elections for state and local office, but they are not required to (Virginia and New Jersey have state elections in odd numbered years).

Very interesting, thank you! :slight_smile:

I figured the Tuesday was so Sunday travel would not be necessary, it was the prejudice against November 1st that was the puzzle.

These days it means not voting when you’re still wrecked from the previous night’s crazy Halloween party.

Interesting. I had always sort of thought it was to keep it from falling on All Saints’ Day, which Anglicans as well as Catholics observe.

Might actually be a bigger consideration now, serendipitously, since churches are being used as polling places.

The All Saints’ Day prohibtion is also what I’ve been told. Saying “the first Tuesday after the first Monday” is a way of expressing it without mentioning religion.