§81 —
On Election Day
Democrat
23RD OF 38
Before any of this year's laws, the oldest obstacle was the date itself. The United States ranks 23rd of 38 OECD countries in voter turnout, and most of the countries above it vote on a weekend or on a declared public holiday 1. More than sixty percent of elections worldwide are held on a weekend, Sunday most commonly 2. Twenty-six percent of Americans who did not vote gave the reason as being too busy — work, school, obligations 1. An analysis of thousands of international elections found turnout rises on average five to six points when a national election moves from a weekday to a rest day 2.
So the fix is known, it is measured, and it has been introduced: the Election Day Act would make today a federal holiday, and no bill of its kind has ever cleared Congress 3. Tuesday was chosen in the 1840s around a farm calendar and a day's travel to the county seat. It has outlived the horse. Both of today's files are about how many hours a person has to spend to cast one vote — and only one of the two got a legislature's attention this year. Polls are open. Go stand in the line.
Sources
- The United States ranks 23rd of 38 OECD countries in turnout, most of which vote on a weekend or national holiday; 26 percent of American nonvoters reported being too busy because of work or school — Institute for Responsive Government, What Other Countries Can Teach Us About Turnout ↑
- More than 60 percent of elections worldwide are held on a weekend, Sunday most commonly; an analysis of thousands of international elections found turnout rises five to six points on average when polling moves from a weekday to a rest day — The Conversation ↑
- The Election Day Act, H.R. 154, 119th Congress, would establish Election Day as a federal holiday; no bill of this kind has cleared Congress — Congress.gov ↑
Republican
THE DOCUMENT
The case for tightening is that a vote counted wrong cancels a vote cast right, and no one who has ever run an election disputes that the rolls need maintaining. What is worth putting on the record today is the size and speed of what was actually enacted. Between 1 January and 1 May 2026, at least nine states enacted twelve restrictive voting laws, nine of which are in force at the polls today 1. Seventeen states enacted thirty-two such laws across 2025, of which thirty-one are in effect for this election 2.
The sharpest of them is documentary proof of citizenship. South Dakota and Utah now require every registrant to produce a document such as a passport or a birth certificate; Florida, Kentucky and Mississippi require it of some voters 1. A passport is a document a person acquires only if they travel, and a birth certificate is one many people have to send away for. That is the trade being made, and it should be named honestly: a paper requirement at the front of registration, paid for in the registrations that do not happen.
Sources
- At least 9 states enacted 12 restrictive voting laws between 1 January and 1 May 2026, 9 in effect for the November election; South Dakota and Utah require documentary proof of citizenship from all registrants, and Florida, Kentucky and Mississippi from some voters — Brennan Center for Justice, State Voting Laws Roundup: May 2026 ↑
- 17 states enacted 32 restrictive voting laws in 2025, 31 of them in effect for the 2026 midterms — Brennan Center for Justice, State Voting Laws Roundup: 2025 in Review ↑
“Election Day. I've got two files and they're both about how hard we make this. First file: we vote on a working Tuesday, more than sixty percent of elections worldwide are on a weekend, we come in twenty-third of thirty-eight in turnout, and twenty-six percent of nonvoters said they were too busy with work or school. Move it to a rest day and the research says turnout goes up five or six points. Second file: nine states passed twelve new restrictions in the first four months of this year, on top of thirty-one from last year still in force today. Sorry, one thing before you go. The first file is a problem nobody fixed in two hundred years. The second one took eighteen months. We move fast when we want to.”— Lou
“It's Tuesday. Go vote. And while you're standing in that line on your lunch break, remember that we're the ones who picked Tuesday — a farm calendar from the eighteen hundreds, kept because nobody ever moved it. Sixty percent of the world votes on a weekend. We rank twenty-third out of thirty-eight. A quarter of the people who don't vote say they were at work. There's a bill to make today a holiday. There's always a bill. Go vote anyway, that's the whole point, they're counting on the line being annoying.”
“Election Day has been Tuesday since 1845 and that continuity is part of what makes it meaningful, and I'd add that if someone genuinely cannot find time to vote across a two-week early voting window, the issue may be one of priorities rather than of access.”