To: The United States House of Representatives, The United States Senate, and President Donald Trump
Make Election Day a National Holiday
Pass the bill to make Election Day a national holiday.
Why is this important?
Nationwide, preliminary indications are that the total turnout for the 2014 elections was only 36.6 percent, according to the United States Elections Project at the University of Florida.
In America, we should be celebrating our democracy and doing everything possible to make it easier for people to participate in the political process. Election Day should be a national holiday so that everyone has the time and opportunity to vote. While this would not be a cure-all, it would indicate a national commitment to create a more vibrant democracy.
We should not be satisfied with a "democracy" in which more than 60 percent of our people don't vote and some 80 percent of young people and low-income Americans fail to vote. We can and must do better than that. While we must also focus on campaign finance reform and public funding of elections, establishing an Election Day holiday would be an important step forward.
Currently, there is a House Resolution on the table in Congress which would expand transparency and voting accessibility across the country. In HR 1, Election Day would become a national holiday for all folks, increasing people's ability to vote by being able to take time away from work to perform their civic duty.
Mitch McConnell is arguing that this is a power grab by Democrats, but that is simply because he is scared of what happens when we increase access to voting. Republicans know that the only way they have access to power is to limit accessibility of voting. That is fundamentally undermining our core democratic values. There is no question that we have to fight back against Mitch and his party and pass HR 1 to make Election day a national holiday.
In America, we should be celebrating our democracy and doing everything possible to make it easier for people to participate in the political process. Election Day should be a national holiday so that everyone has the time and opportunity to vote. While this would not be a cure-all, it would indicate a national commitment to create a more vibrant democracy.
We should not be satisfied with a "democracy" in which more than 60 percent of our people don't vote and some 80 percent of young people and low-income Americans fail to vote. We can and must do better than that. While we must also focus on campaign finance reform and public funding of elections, establishing an Election Day holiday would be an important step forward.
Currently, there is a House Resolution on the table in Congress which would expand transparency and voting accessibility across the country. In HR 1, Election Day would become a national holiday for all folks, increasing people's ability to vote by being able to take time away from work to perform their civic duty.
Mitch McConnell is arguing that this is a power grab by Democrats, but that is simply because he is scared of what happens when we increase access to voting. Republicans know that the only way they have access to power is to limit accessibility of voting. That is fundamentally undermining our core democratic values. There is no question that we have to fight back against Mitch and his party and pass HR 1 to make Election day a national holiday.