Edit: Blog Post #7

Why are elections held on a Tuesday?

A law was established in 1845 which was designed primarily for farmers in that Tuesday was more convenient for them because they had to travel to vote and be able to make it back home on time so that it wouldn’t affect their “market day.” Since most people worked as farmers during that time Tuesday was chosen to be the day that was more convenient for everyone. As of now, that is not a problem anymore and so I think that Election Day should be changed to the weekend. If they made a law that would accommodate them, Shouldn’t we be allowed to do the same? Now, Tuesday doesn’t seem to be suitable for the majority of the population. Most people work during the weekdays, students have work and they have to go to school (college or universities).
   Changing it to the weekend can result in greater voter participation (citizens who don’t normally have a chance to vote and/or even teenagers/young adults) since fewer citizens work on the weekends. Young adults might go to college and have a part-time job so they don’t have the time necessary if they were to make time another problem they encounter is that they need to wait in long lines and end up waiting for several hours to be able to cast their ballot. On the contrary, if it were to change to the weekend they would either have Saturday or Sunday throughout the whole two days, citizens would choose to go at different times and so it would decrease the amount of time someone has to wait in line for.
   In an article I read other countries like France have changed their Election Day to Sunday and studies have shown that it has increased voter turnout. For example in 2012 U.S. voter turnout was less than 54% while in France the voter turnout was 80%.

Source;
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/08/05/fight-voter-suppression-move-election-day-to-weekend-slaughter-ornstein-column/537456001/