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Comment by tick_tock_tick | Hacker News Reader

I think you really need to put your idea in perspective.

Christmas is barely the last hold out for holidays where the people who need time off to vote (retail, food service, other low wage high hour jobs) get at-least a bit of time off and that is being eaten into each year.

Do you really think a federal holiday for voting would do anything but start a whole new round of election day door busters that make it even harder for these people to vote?

A voter holiday is a waste of political capital that doesn't help the people who would need it. Pushing for the voting booths to be open all month long and to allow no justification mail in ballots are the kind of valuable reform we can push for rather than a symbolic holiday that would be ultimately worthless.

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I don't think any of your reasoning makes sense here. It's weirdly aggressive and is sort of a think of the children, but with poor people.

But your conclusion feels like the right call. A weird 180 imo.

They have a point though, every single US holiday is hell on low paid retail workers except for the few select stores that close on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Why would Voting day be any different?

"Election Sale, come in and vote for savings today only!" "We're open late, stop by after you cast your ballot for saaaaavings!"

there are like 10 federal holidays. most of them are not door-buster sales. what's leading you to believe election day would definitely be one?

Those other federal holidays are not in November?

That's just it, though. The working class doesn't get Memorial Day off. Businesses don't close for Flag Day. The people who have the hardest time voting on election day are the same people whose employers would still be open for business that day.

Things like early or mail in voting are far more effective ways to enable those people to vote.

The working class does get Christmas off, though. With limited exceptions.

Which is my point.

And the idea of making election day a national holiday is a baby step, one capable of getting the ball rolling on real change, like extended voting windows and unrestricted mailed ballots.

Gotta start somewhere.

> And the idea of making election day a national holiday is a baby step, one capable of getting the ball rolling on real change, like extended voting windows and unrestricted mailed ballots.

What will be enough? If you make Election Day a federal holiday as important as Christmas do you still need to have such a large voting window and unrestricted mail in ballots? Even now, as is, most people have a two week window to cast a ballot before Election Day. And plenty of options for mail in if they can’t vote in person.

> What will be enough? If you make Election Day a federal holiday as important as Christmas do you still need to have such a large voting window and unrestricted mail in ballots? Even now, as is, most people have a two week window to cast a ballot before Election Day. And plenty of options for mail in if they can’t vote in person.

No idea, honestly. But if we don't start taking any steps at all, we're stuck with a very ugly gremlin of a situation we're already keenly familiar with.

... Are they though? That doesn't match my experience at all. People shop on the days after thanksgiving and before Christmas.

What's happening during Thanksgiving and Christmas? A lot of travel, which I suspect is about the only reason some stores like Costco are closed, not that they're necessarily just being nice to employees but because a lot of their employees are going to be out of town and people would definitely shop there on those days if they could.

I'm not following you. Your main point seemed to be that all holidays are major shopping days, citing Thanksgiving and Christmas. But Thanksgiving and Christmas are not actually major shopping days. And now you're pivoting to say its because employees are traveling? That doesn't make sense...

You correctly pointed out two exceptions to US holidays where businesses tend to make their money before or after, but I'm pointing out they're the exception (because of travel) and I see no reason why Voting Day as a holiday would be like Thanksgiving/Christmas i.e. high amounts of travel, most likely it would result in an increase in local commerce and potentially be a way that would hurt the very people it's meant to help.

People travel on Christmas because they have the day off, not the other way around, obviously. None of them are especially large sales days aside a bit from memorial day. It's a really weak assumption being made here. Also, and this may be a shocker, not everyone works a low level job in retail.

Weirdly aggressive? What's aggressive about it? The thin skin around here is ridiculous.

Getting upset by perceiving other people as thin skinned is like the sensitive equivalent of closeted, ashamed homosexuals behaving in aggressively homophobic ways.

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