this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
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To me the most baffling thing is that it's not on the weekend in the USA AFAIK, like why the fuck would you have it on say a Tuesday when people need to work, pick up their kids from school etc, you might argue that still some people work on the weekends but that's a much lesser percentage and makes voting easier for a lot of people and who does have to work, they can mail it in.
School is usually cancelled because the schools are often polling locations.
It makes it all the more dumb to not have it as a national holiday.
You have answered your own question.
Pretty sure my polling place is open for more than 12 hours. Maybe it varies by state, but that should be a reasonable amount of time for over 99% of the population to get there. Obviously, some places are massively overrun and understaffed, especially in the "unfavorable" districts, but I've had no issues making it out in less than 10 minutes by leaving for work 20 minutes early.
Is literally every business closed all weekend where you live? Or is this just another case of people not realizing that lots of people work holidays and weekends?
Businesses are already legally required to let people leave to vote.
The USA was designed for minority rule since forever.
At the time most Americans were farmers. Can't be Sunday because it's a Christian rest day, Wednesday neither because that's market day. They might have to travel a whole day to get there, so it can't be on Monday or Thursday either. Which leaves only Tuesday, Friday and Saturday.
What are the voting times in America?
It differs by state, mine is 7am to 8pm in addition to the preceding 2 weeks for early voting.
Weird. In the UK it's 7am to 10pm and the queues are rather short