
Startups, let’s act: Make Nov 8 a Holiday - yurisagalov
https://blog.amium.com/startups-lets-act-make-nov-8-a-holiday-529f1c63ab9c#.ef772eyxm
======
koenigdavidmj
My home state of Washington exclusively uses mail-in ballots. (There are
dropboxes if you can't afford a stamp.) Our voter participation rate in the
2012 election was about 60% of voting-age population, compared to about 55%
listed for the same year in the article. The 2014 election participation rate
was just under 40%, which is quite a bit higher than the 30% listed for
California, but still very low.

You can't make this any easier, and half the state _still_ does not vote.

My Washington statistics come from: [http://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voter-
participation.aspx](http://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voter-participation.aspx)

~~~
SmellTheGlove
Compulsory voting is a thing in some places. I wouldn't be against it. Yeah
the uninformed vote will factor, but I think it's reeeallly important that
people vote.

EDIT: I actually like Belgium's model - you don't have to vote, but you do
need to show up at the polls and register attendance. You can abstain if you'd
like.

~~~
nixos
Why should apathetic people vote? They'd presumably vote for the candidate who
spent the most on ads.

If anything, I'd prefer a __fair __voting test, where the person pulling the
lever has to have _some_ kind of background knowledge.

~~~
ethanbond
Background knowledge like: how to read and write English! Or are we
administering these tests verbally and written in every language on earth?

~~~
nixos
In the same languages the ballots are written

~~~
mirkules
I believe ethanbond is alluding to the literacy tests that were instituted in
order to vote prior to the federal 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The tests were predominant in the South and were designed so that nonwhites
would fail them.

Here is a sample: [http://www.crmvet.org/info/la-
littest2.pdf](http://www.crmvet.org/info/la-littest2.pdf) The instructions
alone made my head spin.

More from PBS:
[http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/voting_literacy.html](http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/voting_literacy.html)

------
rconti
Good idea.

Related, relevant:

"Employees who begin their work day less than 3 hours after polls open and
finish less than 3 hours before polls close are entitled to 2 hours leave to
vote (or more if distance requires). The employee must give notice the day
before Election Day and cannot have pay reduced if proof of voting is
provided."

[http://www.findlaw.com/voting-rights-law.html](http://www.findlaw.com/voting-
rights-law.html)

~~~
SmellTheGlove
That would help, but it doesn't directly address the working poor with
multiple jobs. Let's say polls are open from 6am-10pm. Job 1 starts at 6am and
ends at 3pm - condition not met. Job 2 starts at 4pm and ends at 8pm -
condition still not met.

Even as our national unemployment starts to get back to the natural rate of
~5%, underemployment is still a big problem, as is cost of living being too
high in many places for the working class. Hence, the rise of the working
poor, and multiple jobs to make ends meet.

It needs to be a national holiday with anyone normally scheduled to work that
day getting paid for it. Automatic voter registration + mail in ballots easily
accessible would be one alternative.

Stepping back to consider the situation, there really isn't a good reason I
can think of to not shut it down and let our citizens choose their next
leaders. If one paid day for your employees every two years puts you out of
business, so be it.

~~~
briandear
With early voting and absentee, there is no excuse for people not voting. We
don't need a paid holiday. If people want to vote, they will.

------
redthrowaway
Nice idea, but is there _any_ race at _any_ level in SV/CA that's actually
competitive? The "let's take action" narrative rings a bit hollow when you
could empty out every office in the Bay Area and wind up with exactly the same
elected officials that you would have if everyone stayed home.

~~~
yurisagalov
I think it's important to remember that the most important elections to
everyday people are often not DC elections but rather local elections.
Municipal, school boards, etc. In those elections, turn out matters a LOT, and
has huge impact.

~~~
rglovejoy
It's a pretty fair bet that the candidate with a "D" after their name will be
the winner in CA/SV.

~~~
mikestew
I'm going to guess you've not paid a whole lot of attention to CA politics.
The state's voters somehow have this reputation as a bunch of liberal hippies.
But let's look at a few items that stand out in my mind: 1\. Of the last ten
CA governors, six were Republicans. 2\. Legal weed: CA said "no". 3\. Gay
marriage: "no" again.

National elections, sure, the Democrat is almost a shoo-in. But it would seem
that as we drift down to the state and local level, CA is a bit more
conservative than the hype.

~~~
terravion
And don't forget, we now have a top 2 primary, so just because the central
valley gets to pick between two R's and the coasts get to pick between two D's
there may be miles and miles of practical difference between the two even if
the caucus with the same party when they get to Washington or Sacramento.

------
nradov
This is silly. They should be encouraging voting by mail instead. It's much
more efficient and cost effective for everyone concerned. In CA voters don't
even have to pay postage any more.

~~~
kevinjcliao
Did you read the article? This is a pragmatic response to known flaws in the
voting system. Yes, in an ideal world legislature will make policy changes to
make voting easier, but until that happens making election day a holiday is a
start.

~~~
nradov
Yes I read the article. There's nothing pragmatic about it. There are no major
flaws in the mail voting system, at least not in CA. Registration takes only a
few minutes and then they mail you a ballot every election. If voters can't be
bothered to do that then it seems unlikely they would actually show up and
wait in line at a polling place.

If companies want to give employees an extra holiday then sure, go ahead. But
that won't increase voter participation.

~~~
dingaling
> There are no major flaws in the mail voting system

In general terms postal voting, and any method for voter-not-present polling,
is open to coercion and intimidation.

That's why voting-in-person in booths remains the primary method, even in
countries such as the UK where voting papers are logged against the identity
of the voter ( it takes a court order to de-seal that information ).

~~~
donutz
It's definitely open to coercion and intimidation, so in some respects I'd
consider that a "major" flaw. But is it a widespread enough problem to rule
out the paper ballot? Is there a systemic problem of spouses voting for
differently-minded spouses, or employers requiring their employees to turn in
their blank ballots, or things like that?

~~~
jcranmer
The rate of voting fraud for in-person voting in the US seems to be around 1
per 10 million votes cast or so. The rate for voting fraud for vote-by-mail
seems to be around 1 per 100,000 or so.

In terms of invalidated votes, in-person seems to have about 1% of ballot
rejections, whereas vote-by-mail has about 2% rejections. (No data on how many
of those rejections were inappropriate and how many were appropriate that I
could find). Citation: [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-
vote-b...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-by-mail-
faulty-ballots-could-impact-elections.html?_r=0)

------
huangc10
Have to be the devil's advocate here. If you give an employee a day off to
vote, what are the odds that they still don't vote? Will this really solve the
problem of an apathetic employee?

What about something else like a company held half day event that involves
voting and doing something else fun (lunch or picnic?) ie. instead of a party
bus...a voting bus of some sort?

~~~
tormeh
Sure, some people will pirate PC games with or without Steam, but a lot of
people switched to paying when it became more convenient. Convenience and
availability matters. It wouldn't be that far-fetched to propose that this is
also true in voting.

------
mindslight
Do we really need a new religious holiday? Because that's what democracy has
become - the national religion.

The fundamental problem of democracy is that people end up believing that the
government works for them. Under other systems, people _know_ they are at odds
with their rulers. If things get bad enough, they will organize and rebel. But
democracy simulates a pressure-relief valve for discontent, actually leaving
people convinced that they're responsible for the crappy outcome!

The presidential race is the focus because it's the archetype for the whole
system [0]. Regardless of whether the dipshit or the criminal wins this fall,
the useful idiots who fell for their revolutionary rhetoric will subsequently
be justifying oppressive policies that hurt the losing team more than
themselves. They'll receive none of the promised relief, yet they'll reassure
themselves that the other skinjob would have been _sooo_ much worse. It's a
remarkable system for converting dissent into support, and I would call it
elegant but for being its victim.

[0] The exact same dynamic plays out in local races, choosing between the
scumbags who raise taxes and create new nanny state regulations, or the
asshats who underfund schools and let infrastructure fall apart. The
bureaucracy's middle management or the scope of its control is rarely cut
back.

------
acveilleux
Is there no provision at all for time off to vote? In Canada, an elector must
have 3 consecutive hours to vote and if that means taking an hour or two off
work, the employer must provide that paid time off or face a 2000$ fine or 3
months imprisonment.

~~~
maxerickson
30 states have laws requiring time off to vote.

[https://www.workplacefairness.org/voting-rights-
workplace](https://www.workplacefairness.org/voting-rights-workplace)

Combined with early voting:

[https://ballotpedia.org/Early_voting](https://ballotpedia.org/Early_voting)

And polls being open for 12 hours or more in most places.

[http://www.infoplease.com/us/government/voter-
registration-d...](http://www.infoplease.com/us/government/voter-registration-
deadlines-poll-hours.html)

------
SmellTheGlove
This is absolutely a great place to start, but the rest of the country would
need to follow. Election day should not be on a work day, as the working poor
are disproportionately excluded because they cannot get to the polls (for a
number of reasons that I'm not sure we need to get into).

In addition, automatic voter registration and easily accessible mail in
ballots are needed as well.

~~~
jdmichal
I would guess that the working poor also tend to disproportionately not work
the normal 9-5 business week. Moving it to the weekend doesn't help when the
weekend is the busiest time for retail and food. I'm not sure whether making
it a holiday fixes this either -- those are exactly the types of places that
are still open on holidays. We need full time displacement, but voting over
multiple days allows partial results to influence future votes.

~~~
dragonwriter
> We need full time displacement, but voting over multiple days allows partial
> results to influence future votes.

Voting over multiple days doesn't mean that partial results are available.
(Given that, even in places that don't have all-mail elections, mail/absentee
ballots are a significant fraction of ballots, we _have_ voting over multiple
days _now_ \-- even in the places that don't have "early voting" at actual
polling locations. We don't have results before voting closes, though, and
this prevents partial results from having an impact [outside of Presidential
primaries, which are series of separate-but-related elections, where we have a
_very_ big effect of results early in the process].)

~~~
jdmichal
There's rarely partial results available. That doesn't stop media from doing
exit polling and printing headlines like, "Banana is leading by 10%! Can Pear
make up the difference?". I'm sure this already has some impact which is
limited simply by the single-day period. Imagine if that was on the nightly
news instead.

------
miend
#1 way to increase voter turnout:

Make it not seem pointless.

~~~
groby_b
#1 way of not making it pointless? Actually getting asses out of seats, so
people vote on candidates that matter to them.

60%-70% of eligible voters sit at home, whining how their vote won't change
things anyways. Guess what - it just might, _if you actually voted_.

The number of non-voters dwarfs actual voters. If everybody voted, they could
duke it out with several independent candidates and still trounced the
established ones. (Yes, that's an unlikely scenario. But voting has power - if
you actually care to do it)

~~~
brlewis
This sounds like an argument for making the primary elections into holidays.
By the time the general election rolls around it's too late.

~~~
groby_b
I think that

a) All elections should offer a mail-in ballot

b) All elections should be on Saturday or Sunday

c) If you work on those days, you should be entitled to paid time off.

In that order. Alas, c) is the only item our community can affect, so we'll
have to do that if we want to do anything.

[Edit: I _also_ think that HN really could do with support for enumerations.
We're engineers. We enumerate :)]

------
SmellTheGlove
Just another random thought as I shovel more shit into this thread :)

Beyond election day, we ought to to better with primary participation. I read
somewhere that basically 9% of the voting public decided that Trump and
Clinton would be our nominees. Even if 100% of voters show up on November 8,
not enough of the public is in there driving the choices on the ballot that
day.

However, primary participation is a bigger issue than a day off. Even if you
don't work at all, most people can't afford a day to caucus in the states that
do it (I'm in one of those states), and everyone else is probably still hung
over from the last election cycle. But 2016 is a banner year to show who we
get as our choices when we stop paying attention in the primaries. When I go
to the polls on Nov 8, no one on the ballot is actually someone I'd want to
lead our country, and I bet a lot of people feel the same.

------
daniel_levine
Huge fan of this! Increasing voter turnout is something I think everyone can
get behind and has a tremendous impact!

~~~
ryandrake
I thought that increased voter turnout (at least in the USA) tends to benefit
one party disproportionately more than the other, and is therefore a partisan
issue. This is why efforts to disqualify voters tend to be supported by one
party and opposed by the other, and vice versa for efforts to open up voting
to more people.

~~~
SapphireSun
It may benefit one party more than the other, but... is that really an
argument for not increasing the turnout? It sounds crazy to me that anyone can
argue against it in a system whose legitimacy comes from regular expressions
of the popular will.

~~~
briandear
Popular will can be a dangerous thing if the popular will is dominated by
ignorance. I personally don't want everyone to vote. Kayne West would end up
president.

~~~
SapphireSun
You're right, but... what's the alternative? Fear of "mob rule" is what kept
the nobility afraid of a transition to representative government.

I want the populace's will represented (constrained by constitutional
protections of various rights), but I'll admit sometimes you just wish you had
another populace. That's just the cards you're dealt. Other forms of
government aren't responsive to the people.

This comic was an amusing commentary on this topic: [http://www.smbc-
comics.com/comic/sword-of-democracy](http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sword-
of-democracy)

~~~
Retra
You don't really want the populace's will represented, though. You want
decisions to be made in the manner that best conforms to the populations
needs. The difference being that the former tends to reflect what people
currently know and feel while the latter reflects what they would do if they
had more information and behaved rationally.

------
Esau
I've always thought that the national election day should be a holiday;
especially since we have an extra day due to leap years and voting years
coinciding (well, except for years ending in 00 that aren't equally divisible
by 400).

~~~
marmshallow
Only the presidential vote happens every four years. There is voting for other
elections every year.

~~~
Esau
I understand that but most people are only concerned about the presidential
elections. The turn out on the off years reflects this.

------
k3nx
I like this idea, but I think it's just as important, if not more so, to vote
in the Primary elections held before the general election. The primary
determines who's on the general election ballot. If you ever wonder why the
candidate you wanted to vote for never made it to the general, it could have
been because they lost the primary.

Also, absentee ballots are easy to do. Contact your County Elections Office
(typically under the Clerks office) and ask how. It might just be as easy as
that phone call. They will MAIL you a ballot, they might even include a
postage paid return envelope and you should receive it 30-45 days before the
election so you can fill it out and return it way before election night when
it is counted.

------
keithwarren
I would be curious to see a whole state do this and see if participation
really changed. we assume so but data is not there that I know of..

I believe the real solution is to stop with the election _day_ concept and
move more to an election week or something similar.

~~~
dragonwriter
There are plenty of places in the US that do that, and it helps some.

But we already know from extensive study of political systems in modern
democracies that the biggest reason for low turnout in the US is the fact that
very large groups in the electorate see no candidate that represents their
interests well when voting, and see no strong basis to select between the
viable choices, due to the partisan duopoly produced as a natural result of
the combination of majority-runoff and plurality elections for most offices.

If you _really_ want to improve participation in US elections, fiddling with
the mechanics, scheduling, and incidental related features of casting ballots
without changing the electoral system in a fundamental way isn't going to have
more than marginal effect.

------
netik
I guess this will happen right around the time that startups actually give
people 'unlimited vacation time', which generally means 'don't take it or
you'll be fired/left out.'

------
donretag
The US federal government only has the authority to grant holidays to federal
employees. Employers are under no obligation to grant those holidays to their
employees. How many have Columbus or Veterans day off? Both MLK and Presidents
Day? Many employers and unions follow the federal calendar, but many do not.
Some state governments do not even follow the federal calendar (MLK
especially).

Another federal holiday will just be another week day where most people go to
work, but the banks are closed and your mail will not be delivered.

------
dibujante
> And of Silicon Valley workers between the ages of 25 and 34, only 19% voted
> in the last general election.

Um, aren't Silicon Valley workers more likely to be immigrants? They _can 't_
vote.

~~~
Namrog84
I would hope the % is based off eligible voter workers. Otherwise you are
right to say it's non representative

------
throwanem
Is this really a problem? Throughout my entire career I've never worked for
any organization that had a problem with those of its staff members who are
citizens of the United States discharging the responsibilities that come along
with that status. It seems improbable on its face that Silicon Valley startups
would make this so difficult that pausing the business for an entire day is
necessary to resolve the issue.

On the other hand, hey, who doesn't love an extra day off?

------
izacus
I'm not familiar with US election system, but is there a reason why elections
in USA aren't on sundays?

Here at least all voting is done on Sundays with reasoning being that this
maximises the amount of people that can make it to the stand (since majority
of population doesn't work on sundays and most of the others have a part-time
schedule). What's the reason US avoids that?

~~~
rglovejoy
[http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/why-do-we-vote-
on-a-...](http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/why-do-we-vote-on-a-tuesday-
in-november)

------
bifrost
I have to agree, its pretty weak that so few people actually get out and vote.
To be blunt, it doesn't require that much effort or time; you can vote by mail
in a decent amount of places as well.

------
K-Wall
I always wondered why we only have a single election day given how long the
candidates spend campaigning. Is there any reason why a 3 day window (or more)
couldn't be used?

~~~
rogerdpack
Mail-ins are accepted "over time" as it were. Which apparently doesn't help
LOL. However, it might be nice to have multiple days (or strictly mail-in, as
my city now does) to be able to avoid those long lines, those can be
painful...

------
gojomo
In any well-functioning district, shouldn't an hour off be enough?

~~~
daxelrod
Sure, but you can't assume a well-functioning district.
[http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/controversy-
surround...](http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/controversy-surrounds-
long-voting-lines-arizona)

Since your company's workforce likely comes from a bunch of different
districts, it's also hard to extrapolate from your own experiences to all of
theirs.

------
tomphoolery
Yeah we should totally get a holiday for an act that takes all of 10-15
minutes and doesn't require drinking alcohol. /s

Don't you guys have work from home policies? This is a solution looking for a
problem.

------
rumayor
Awesome idea! Great work!

