This year, Election Day is Tuesday, November 8. On this day, millions of American citizens will be able to go to their local place of polling to vote for the next president of the United States. But at the same time, millions of others will fail to exercise their civic duty of voting.
There are a lot of reasons why people don't vote. Some think that their one vote won't make a difference among the millions of other votes. Some think that the Electoral College makes the overall decision anyway so their vote doesn't matter. And others don't have time in their day to stand in lines for hours to cast their single vote.
In America, Election Day is not a federal holiday. Some states like Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Montana and West Virginia consider Election Day a civic holiday, making it a non-working day. People in these states can vote easier than people in other states because most have off of work that day, allowing them the ability to vote at any point during the day. Other states like New York and California have laws that say employees who don't have time to vote must be given a two hour paid leave at the beginning or end of their shift so that they have sufficient time to vote.
But as you can see, a majority of the United States doesn't observe Election Day as a civic holiday. This means people have to go to work and spend their free time before or after work at the polling stations.
According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, voter turnout for the 2012 presidential election was just 57.5 percent of eligible voters compared to the 62.3 percent turnout in 2008. In 2004, 60.4 percent of voters participated in the election and 54.2 of eligible voters voted in 2000.
There are always excuses given for why people don't vote, but perhaps if our nation could make one extra day a federal holiday every four years, there would be less excuses and a higher voter turnout. Some citizens just don't have time in their work day to dedicate to voting. Not all people can't afford to take off work to vote, and many don't think their contribution of one vote would be worth that anyway.
But it is worth it. When everyone starts to believe that their vote doesn't matter, we start depending on the votes of a select few people to decide the fate of our country's presidential election. And that becomes a problem when everyone decides they can complain about politics when they didn't even contribute to the electing of the president.
So let's make Election Day a federal holiday. We can justify adding one non-working day every four years when that day involves electing the next leader of our country. More votes means that we can elect a president into office who bes represents the American population, and who wouldn't want that?
