
Your company can increase voter turnout: make Election Day a company holiday - smacktoward
https://www.electionday.org/
======
40acres
I've voted twice in my life. The first time was in 2012, where I waited for
over 2.5 HRS in pretty cold weather and saw dozens of folks leave the line
because they had to go to work, school, or just couldn't wait that long
because they had kids or were elderly.

The second time I voted was last year, since 2012 I've moved to Oregon. I got
a voters pamphlet in the mail weeks before the election, and while we all knew
who the presidential candidates where this pamphlet provided a great way to
catch up on state and local races. I spent 2-3 days reading the pamphlet and
researching the issues. I filled out a form within ~10 minutes and dropped it
in the mail. It was great.

More states should move to vote by mail.

~~~
Thlom
2.5 hours long lines to vote would have been a major crisis in Norway. The
longest I've ever waited was 20 minutes when I voted in city hall just after 4
pm when everyone got off work and voted on their way home. Even then there was
an election official walking up and down the line warning about the waiting
times and guiding people to to other places to vote.

Seriously, this is easily solvable with easy access to early voting, enough
ballot places with enough election officials and enough voting booths.

~~~
warent
What are you trying to do, give everybody in the USA a voice or something? Not
in THIS lobby!

------
Zombieball
I didn’t know this was not already mandated by law. I wish I could say I’m
surprised, but it seems to jive with the general theme of other US policies.

To contrast, in Canada:

“By law, eligible electors must have three consecutive hours to cast their
vote on election day. If your hours of work do not allow for three consecutive
hours to vote, your employer must give you time off.

Employers cannot impose a penalty or deduct pay from an employee who is taking
time off to vote if required by the Canada Elections Act. An employee must be
paid what he or she would have earned during the time allowed off for voting.”

[Source]
[http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=faq&doc...](http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=faq&document=faqvoting&lang=e#a9)

Edit: happy to see similar laws do exist for some states!

~~~
_delirium
Unfortunately the UK is the same as the US in this regard. Elections are
always held on a Thursday, and employers aren't required to give time off to
vote.

~~~
bigbluedots
In Australia, voting is always on a weekend, and is compulsory. Also, there
are sausages in bread for sale

~~~
inopinatus
I'm proud of my democracy sausage but remain unconvinced that criminalising
nonparticipation advances the ideals and outcomes of a government by the
people. There are downsides too, most obviously when some crude federal
politician stretches the Overton window in an attempt to sway reluctant
voters.

~~~
piva00
But is it criminalised? At least in Brazil voting is compulsory but a failure
to vote only gives you a VERY meager fine (something less than US$ 1, even for
Brazil that is cheap) and if you haven't sorted that out the only penalty is
not allowing you to request a new passport. Then you have to pay the fine and
go on your merry way again.

It's mostly a deterrent by being annoying, paying the fine is a bit
bureaucratic so people try to avoid it.

Not that Brazil is a beacon of democracy and good leadership but at least it's
pretty sensible on the penalties you get for non-participation.

------
xenadu02
PSA: For those of us in CA, fill out the form online at
[http://registertovote.ca.gov](http://registertovote.ca.gov). If you don't
have a CA driver's license print and mail the form. If you do have a CA
identification the entire registration is handled electronically. The only
requirement to be a resident is that you live in California with the intent to
make it your home.

Once you're registered mail in the vote-by-mail form
elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/vote-by-mail/pdf/vote-by-mail-application.pdf.

From that point forward they will mail the ballot to your house anytime there
is an election. Check the boxes and drop the pre-paid envelope in the mail. It
really is very easy.

Often municipal elections are decided by narrow margins. If everyone working
at startups in the bay area registered and started voting it could easily
swing the outcome of various propositions, housing policy, etc.

We like to think our industry is non-political but as software eats the world
we are only going to increasingly be involved in politics. Voting is the bare-
minimum in civic duty. If we don't make our voices heard we'll keep getting
restrictive zoning on the local level and DMCA/CFAA garbage on the national
level.

~~~
DrScump

      The only requirement to be a resident is that you live in California with the intent to make it your home.
    

But to _register to vote_ in a state/Federal election, you must be a
_citizen_. If you drill down to the FAQ, its opening page says:

"Who can register to vote? To register to vote in California, you must be:

A United States citizen and a resident of California, 18 years old or older on
Election Day"

------
mikestew
Which election day? The Sunday that I sit down at my leisure with the voting
guide and fill out my ballot? Or maybe I'm busy on Sunday and do it Saturday.
Or maybe I'm actually on the ball this year and do it a week early.

I've been trying to find downsides to mail-in voting since Washington
implemented it. Haven't found any, but I'm open to ideas. Don't have a stamp?
Fine drop it off at the drop-off box on the way to work. Can't even do that?
I'm pretty sure the local $SENIOR_ORG will drive you if you call them.

Oh, and mail-in gets rid of the "day off work" problem, too.

~~~
andrewla
The only downside that I'm aware of is that it makes certain kinds of
systematic voter fraud possible. Specifically, selling your ballot becomes a
trivial thing.

Currently, that practice is limited by in-person voting for a couple of
reasons; first that you have to show up at the polling place and sign in the
book, second is that there is no way for a third party to verifiably see that
you have voted the correct way, much less fill out the ballot on your behalf.

While both of these can be worked around, it is at much higher cost in terms
of the possibility of being caught.

How concerned we should be about this is a matter of opinion; there's not
really a practical way to measure whether it makes a difference, since the
fraud is so undetectable.

The other thing is that this does not solve the voter turnout problem --
Washington, Oregon, and Colorado all do well for voter turnout, but don't lead
the pack compared to other states with in-person voting.

~~~
saas_co_de
> does not solve the voter turnout problem

Refusing to vote is a perfectly valid choice in a democracy.

Politicians like to pretend that the 40-60% of the people who don't vote are
not voting because they are stupid, ill-informed, or whatever, but the much
more likely explanation is that this group recognizing (rightly) that voting
is a waste of time in a political system as corrupt as the U.S. or the refuse
to vote as a form of conscientious objection.

In reality the winner of every election in decades has been "none of the
above."

~~~
andrewla
I agree to a very large extent; I was just commenting on a response to an
article about increasing voter turnout. The suggested approach (mail-in-only
voting), while nice in many ways, does not (empirically) have that particular
effect.

I think voter turnout has become the axis on which all modern (presidential)
elections have hinged. Trump didn't beat Hillary in the rust belt by
convincing hoards of Obama supporters to bot Republican. What the Obama voters
did, though, was stay home. The numbers bear this out (although we don't have
individual tallies) -- Trump didn't win any more votes in those states than
Romney did in the last election. The same voters who pulled that lever came
out and did the same thing they did in the last cycle.

That's also why the polls were so off -- they rely on "likely voter" models,
not realizing that what they should be measuring is not who likely voters will
vote for, but whether or not people will show up at the polls. Instead, they
used "likely voter" criteria that they learned in the Obama election and
gauged sentiment in that group.

~~~
saas_co_de
> What the Obama voters did, though, was stay home

The group of Obama voters that declined to vote for Clinton was definitely
large enough to lose her the election.

That sort of reinforces my point about role of refusing to vote in a
democracy. The political power of those protest non-voters far exceeded the
power of anyone who voted.

------
sixQuarks
Serious question: How does increasing voter turnout make anything better?
Doesn't that just increase the likelihood of politicians using unscrupulous
techniques to fool voters?

A huge problem is actively ignorant voters in my opinion, this would make the
problem worse.

~~~
pdelbarba
The current system appears to vastly under represent the young and poor and
over represent the elderly. The politicians exist to represent everyone's
interests so any statistical disconnect undermines the system.

~~~
sixQuarks
Did Net neutrality not teach you anything? Open your eyes, politicians exist
to represent special interests - if they're doing that with net neutrality,
think of what they're doing in areas where people don't pay much attention.

------
Aloha
.. or just make all balloting mail in.

Though I think you'd see an increase in turnout if return postage was paid.

~~~
tryptophan
... or lets realize its not 1950 and we could vote electronically.

~~~
alkonaut
Even if you can do it securely (I do all my taxes electronically, as is the
case with all other contacts with public services and authorities), there are
issues with elections.

E.g: someone cold drive around “helping” elderly people to e-vote. This type
of thing has to be done “visibly” if you have to bus people to polls.
Basically, if you want to cheat you have to do it in public.

Polling stations are a good invention. The ceremonial act of physically voting
and seeing others vote also has value.

~~~
gizmo686
You can already do that with mail in voting. The problem with electronic
voting is that it can be hacked at scale.

------
peeters
> More people would vote if Election Day were a holiday.

That's the premise. Do we know it's true?

If people are going to work, they're at least mobile that day. Give people a
free day off and some percentage won't even put pants on that day.

There should be enough companies that already give a holiday for election day
that the numbers on how it affects voter turnout should be available. But I
didn't see that anywhere on the page.

My gut says that giving paid time to vote, rather than the whole day off,
would be better for turnout. But that's just a guess. Show me the numbers.

~~~
akkat
I don't know the answer but in Israel election day is a holiday. The common
stigma is that you vote in the morning and then have a barbeque in the
afternoon. I don't know whether it would work the same way in the US, but
that's how it is in one country.

------
Bhilai
Election day is a holiday in India and there is still pretty low voter turn
out.

------
cletus
We're tackling the most minor of symptoms. What US elections need is:

1\. Mandatory voting. I'm talking a small fine if you don't show up to a
polling place and get your name checked off;

2\. Preferential voting. Vote for the candidates in the order you want. The
one with the least primary votes gets eliminated and those votes get
distributed to the second preferences. This continues until one candidate has
50.1% of the vote. This way you can vote for a third-party candidate without
wasting your vote.

3\. Voting over a two day period, probably Saturday and Sunday. This will
allow you to use a whole host of government buildings as polling places such
as schools that are almost by definition widely geographically distributed;

4\. Zero electronic voting. None. Nada. Zilch. More, the standards need to be
tightened to have high accuracy voting methods. Optically read ballots where
you fill in a circle work wondrously well. Punch cards do not. See the Florida
recount of 2000 if you want to see what happens with that;

5\. An end to politicizing the election process. It's incredibly dangerous. No
more elections for a supervisor of elections or the like. Other countries seem
to manage with an electoral commission. The US can too;

6\. An end to state governments controlling redistricting. The same electoral
commission(s) should handle this.

Of course, none of this will actually happen.

EDIT: several commenters raised three points in particular.

1\. Mandatory voting. I come from Australia where we have mandatory voting. By
"mandatory" it means you just have to show up to a polling place and get your
name ruled out of a large file. It's slightly more tedious if you vote out of
your registered district but only slightly.

There's nothing stopping you putting an empty ballot in the box or drawing a
picture or just voting invalid. There is no free speech issue here.

I used to be against it until I came to the US to see what havoc voluntary
voting wreaks.

The US has a long history of voter suppression because voting isn't mandatory.
Getting out the vote is one thing. But the US in parts goes much further than
this including:

\- Removing your vote if you're convicted of a felony. Why exactly?

\- Removing you from the electoral rolls if your name matches that of a felon
on the other side of the country;

\- Sending mail to your registered address. If it's returned undeliverable,
strike you off the rolls;

\- Making you wait hours to vote to discourage you from voting, particularly
in areas heavily populated with those that might otherwise vote against you
(in Australia it never took me more than about 5-10 minutes to vote).

People argue about the evils of having the uninformed vote but if Trump has
taught us nothing it's that choosing to vote isn't exactly a recipe for
informed voting either.

All of the above are a direct consequence of a politicized electioneering
process made possible by non-mandatory voting.

2\. Electronic voting. This is a recipe for a foreign power or just a hacker
to steal your election by modifying the results in a database rather than
interfering with paper ballots that can be audited and recounted.

Sure you can ballot stuff with fake ballots but that's something that requires
physical proximity and is far harder to do on the scale that large scale
tampering with a database might mean.

Electronic voting is a wholly terrible idea with literally no upside.

3\. Mail in ballots. All in favour of it if it's like Oregon where you have
the month before the election to send it in. It needs to be easy and flexible.

~~~
edpazu
Mandatory voting is a violation of the First Amendment.

~~~
woodruffw
No, it isn't. It _might_ be unconstitutional _if_ mandatory voting required
you to choose between a fixed number of candidates, but there's nothing
stopping voters from putting whatever they please on their ballots.

You are legally compelled by the government to fill out tax paperwork every
year. Being (much more lightly) compelled to fill out a ballot is no
different.

~~~
vel0city
You are only legally compelled by the government to fill out tax paperwork if
you experience a taxable event in that year which would require you to fill
out the form. If you do not have a taxable event (i.e., no income) you are not
required to send any information to the government in relation to taxes.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compelled_speech](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compelled_speech)

EDIT: IANAL, please do not cite this as any legal justification in a court if
you fail to file any form with a government.

~~~
woodruffw
The point is that the government can compel speech without endangering the
first amendment. The IRS could decide tomorrow to mandate a form for those
below the taxable level without running afoul of compulsion.

 _If_ your income is subject to taxation, you can't refuse to fill out the
paperwork on the grounds that doing so lends legitimacy to an institution you
don't support. The same should be the case for voting.

~~~
vel0city
What would be the requirement to compel voting? Be of voting age population
and be mentally sound? Sounds like a massive expansion of state power to force
all people of a certain age and sound mind to do an action.

~~~
woodruffw
I'm not sure what you mean by the "requirement." In order to vote in the US,
you have to be of voting age. Some states impose additional requirements, like
not being a felon (which I think are wrong, but that's another story).

Mandatory voting would have the same requirements. Anybody who previously
_could_ vote now _must_.

In terms of state power: it's not all that great of an expansion. If you make
over the taxable limit, you pay federal taxes. If you own any sort of land,
there's a good chance you pay local taxes on it. These sorts of compulsions
apply to (equally?) large swathes of the population without necessitating a
great deal of state power.

~~~
vel0city
There is a massive difference between paying taxes when you choose to
participate in an economy than having the government compel you to make a
political statement. You choose to buy land which is protected by the state.
You choose to buy things at the store. You choose to have an income. You can
choose to not buy a house, you can choose to not work for an income.

The closest thing to compare compelling people to vote would be the draft.

~~~
frgtpsswrdlame
You think people are less compelled to have an income than they are to vote if
a small fine is levied? It doesn't make any sense. You put in a small fine for
not voting, you make it clear that you can walk into a ballotbox and draw a
huge x and stick it in the machine and you don't have to pay the fine and bada
bing bada boom, we've got a lot more voters.

------
peterwwillis
Largest employers in the USA:

    
    
      - United States Department of Defense : 3.2 million
      - Walmart                             : 2.3 million
      - United States Postal Service	: 574 thousand
      - Amazon                              : 541 thousand
      - Kroger	                        : 443 thousand
      - Yum! Brands	                        : 420 thousand
      - International Business Machines	: 414 thousand
      - The Home Depot	                : 406 thousand
      - McDonald's                          : 375 thousand
      - Berkshire Hathaway                  : 367 thousand
      - FedEx	                        : 335 thousand
      - United Parcel Service	        : 335 thousand
      - Target Corporation	                : 323 thousand
    

And so on with Walgreens, GE, Albertsons, Wells Fargo, AT&T, PepsiCo,
Cognizant, Starbucks, Deloitte, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lowe's, TJX, Ernst & Young,
and UnitedHealth Group.

......Does anyone else get the feeling that maybe this would have a biased
impact?

~~~
nawgszy
I'm not sure I understand the implication. Can you be a bit more explicit?

~~~
peterwwillis
For one thing, it allows large corporations to increase their influence, by
helping people that are vested in protecting their interests vote for
candidates who support those companies. If a large enough set of employees is
in one area, that could swing a local election. Two, a lot of these employers
would appear to employ people along a particular side of the political
spectrum.

Combine these aspects with the fact that it would probably be _easier_ for
these large companies to switch a current day off to election day, rather than
small companies who may not be able to afford it, if they give days off at
all. It could end up having decidedly biased impacts on what political party
is in power, and what industries get more power.

------
twoquestions
Trouble is, a lot of companies disallow election day requests for time off
_specifically_ to disenfranchise their employees.

Yes it's quite illegal, but that doesn't matter if you can't get a lawyer to
assert your rights, or don't have the bargaining power to get another job
after they fire you for making a stink.

~~~
LyndsySimon
> Yes it's quite illegal

Is it?

~~~
lbotos
Not op, but I did a search and couldn't find the correct query to confirm or
deny. It _might_ not be illegal for businesses to refuse time off for voting
in the US. (seems like a bad place to work, but I'm sure it happens.)

~~~
asteli
Reference for you: [https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/taking-time-off-
voti...](https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/taking-time-off-voting-
jury-29708.html)

------
Blackthorn
Making election day a holiday is pointless. Poor people work on holidays.

What would actually be helpful is what a lot of states like Washington have
done. Early voting, voting by mail, voting by drop off places.

------
smileysteve
I question this validity a lot. Most people I know try to sync company
holidays with their vacations.

~~~
monocasa
The people using company holidays to coordinate vacations aren't the people
the holiday is supposed to help.

There's a difference between "I decided to go to Cabo that day, so I didn't
get to vote in person", and "the last three people who asked for some time to
go vote were quickly fired for bullshit that everyone here knows was just
because they wanted to go vote. Guess I'll just stop voting."

~~~
smileysteve
Based on the number of stores that are open on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and
states of emergency, I don't expect businesses that don't want people to vote
to add a company holiday instead of 2 hours of flexibility.

[I doubt it's banks, government services, and companies that love to add extra
holidays that people don't travel on holidays]

------
Balgair
Though a nice sentiment, such a holiday would be unnecessary and too
complicated to implement. As other commenters point out, mail balloting is
much easier and already implemented in many precincts. The US is a very large
country, and there are elections all the time. Would people need a day off for
school board elections? What about the recent Alabama special senate election?
Restricting it to only presidential elections, or once yearly elections, would
be impractical for the day to day democracy of our nation.

Perhaps compulsory voting would be a better idea? Though groups like the Amish
and Jehovah's Witnesses would be dead set against such an idea, compulsory
voting has good track records in places like Australia where there was much
hand wringing over a low 91% turnout. However, many Australians point to the
compulsory vote as a reason _why_ their parliaments are _bad_ , as it forces
people with little to no interest to make a choice in an election.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Australia)

------
chrisdsaldivar
Nice idea but could you remove the mining script from the site. It's a great
way to piss people off and keep them from sharing the site.

~~~
losteric
what script?

~~~
chrisdsaldivar
I had 100% cpu utilization a bit after I opened the link. I inspected it and
found workers for coinhive.com. I closed the tab after that and cpu
utilization dropped.

~~~
chrisdsaldivar
I reproduced it twice before I left the original comment. Now I'm not getting
it anymore either. I reproduced it in Chrome and Firefox. My only extensions
are adblock and privacy badger.

------
kyleblarson
Just implement all vote by mail. Washington State did it a few years back and
we haven't looked back.

------
sputknick
I've long thought we should eliminate Columbus day, and making election day a
holiday.

~~~
megaman22
Why eliminate a holiday? We have few enough of them as it is.

------
alkonaut
“Country” is misspelled in the title.

------
roschdal
In Norway we can vote in advance before the election, at a convenient time.
Problem solved!

~~~
_delirium
That's also common in the U.S., but it varies by state. 37 of the 50 states
have early voting, while 13 have only election-day voting. Map here:
[http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-
campaigns/absente...](http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-
campaigns/absentee-and-early-voting.aspx)

------
ProAm
Why would our company do this when our company can vote with it's dollars
thanks to Citizens United. They have a better way to shape policy than let its
employees choose.

I'm being a little sarcastic but also speak with a tinge of truthfulness.

------
jacek
Many countries have elections on Sundays to make it easier for most people to
vote. Wouldn't advocating for moving the election day to Sunday be better
alternative?

~~~
gms7777
Overall, I'm in favor of this, but there may be unintended consequences. For
one, having it on Sunday seems like it disproportionately disadvantages those
that work in retail and food service, which tend to be lower wage earners, as
those are the individuals that are more likely to have to work on Sunday.
Additionally, it might make it more difficult for individuals with children --
Tuesday is a school day so there's free childcare. Though overall, I'd say the
benefits outweigh the costs.

------
ClayShentrup
Turnout is incredibly unimportant.

[http://scorevoting.net/RelImport.html](http://scorevoting.net/RelImport.html)

------
thespace123
There's a list of people who choose not to vote that is published every year.
Shame! (bell) Shame! (bell) Shame! (bell)

------
alkonaut
1\. Election on a Sunday. It’s not controversial, it’s bloody obvious. No one
should even be able to find an argument against moving it.

2\. Automatic registration. Registration is just increasing the barrier to
vote.

3\. Remove all disenfranchisement. All adult citizens have a vote. Pretending
you can somehow forfeit that right in a democracy is laughable.

Now: there is one party that would rather not see either of these changes.

~~~
meragrin
> 1\. Election on a Sunday. It’s not controversial, it’s bloody obvious. No
> one should even be able to find an argument against moving it.

Christian churches are used in my area as polling places. I would hate to know
how far I would have to drive if they would no longer be used. How about
Saturday?

>2\. Automatic registration. Registration is just increasing the barrier to
vote.

How do we "automatically" register someone? Location and age would be
required. There is no system I am aware of which is automatically updated when
a person moves. Requiring people to deal with state ids has already been
decided as too onerous.

~~~
5555624
> How do we "automatically" register someone?

When they get their driver's license or state-issued ID. Don't make it an
option, just do it. That would take care of most people, since they have a
state-issued driver's license or ID. It's the photo ID most people in the
United States use. (I didn't own a car for close to 20 years and still had a
driver's license as a photo ID.)

Although I initially registered to vote by going to the county courthouse;
when I recently moved (in state) and got a new driver's license, the system
asked if I wanted to update my voter registration. Don't make it an option,
just automatically do it.

That should take care of most people.

------
lucidguppy
Start a petition in your state to make it a holiday.

------
taobility
why not change the voting day to Saturday/Sunday?

~~~
Blackthorn
People still work on Saturdays and Sundays.

------
sbassi
Why is voter turnout considered important?

------
masonic
... because filling out an absentee ballot is _so_ arduous.

~~~
jandrese
Depending on your state it can require an hour drive to a polling place for
the 4 hours it is open on a random Thursday to get the ballot and provide a
valid reason (doctor's note) why you need an absentee ballot.

~~~
cujo
Honest question: where is this happening?

~~~
jandrese
Mostly in the South where easy absentee ballots would interfere with the black
voter suppression systems.

[https://www.vote.org/absentee-voting-rules/](https://www.vote.org/absentee-
voting-rules/)

------
mrsea
Be careful about going along with a secular government and giving your consent
to it with a vote, for we are not to call anyone leader except the Messiah -
see Matt 23:10 in the Aramaic. What you think is freedom from the creator's
life-giving ways is a deceptive illusion from the Adversary. Reject it and
vote for the Messiah by living righteously.

