Democracy Holiday

• Make the regular November General Election a state holiday 

The November General Election in California is currently held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in even-numbered years, between November 2 and 8, depending upon the year.

Because the November General Election is consolidated with Federal elections for Congress and especially President, California can not move the date.  But California should make it easier to vote that day by making it a state holiday, equivalent to other state holidays .

Some would argue that the shift to early voting before Election Day, and the opportunity to cast early ballots at drop boxes or vote centers spread around the country already makes it easier to vote.  The problem with this is that we incentivizing people to vote before campaigns have concluded, without first exploring more simple and direct ways of increasing voter turnout on Election Day.

There are meaningful downsides to promoting voting before campaigns have concluded. The most obvious is that it limits the ability of voters, candidates and the media to respond to developing campaign issues and information. If something important occurs and you’ve already voted, you are out of luck. So are the candidate and media, who no longer can to respond to you in time.

Early voting also favors candidates (especially incumbents) with early big money – especially to pay for expensive direct mailers to reach early voters – compared to candidates whose grassroots campaigns develop over time. Early voting can even depress door-to-door campaigning by making it less effective, because many voters reached by door-knockers will already have voted.

Why is it hard for many people to vote on Election Day? Because it’s a work day. How do we solve that? We can make primary and general election days state holidays, and keep the polls open til 11:59pm for people who still have to work those days. It’s really not that complicated. Then we can see what voter turnout would be, when most people have Election Day free. Then we can design complementary systems around that reality, instead of enacting radical change today based upon incomplete information.

This isn’t just theoretical.

Do we really want to pit voter turnout vs. grassroots politics and an informed and empowered electorate?

California should also extend voting hours to 11:59pm on Election Day, so that workers at workplaces that don’t typically shut down for state and federal holidays (e.g. hospitals, hotels, retail, restaurants) can still vote.