Cfrtjryk

As a European I was quite shocked to hear that people in the USA have to take an unpaid vacation day from work to be able to take part in elections.

1. Is that really true? So do people really get their salary reduced in a month where they take part in an election? Can an employer even refuse to give a vacation day for voting?




2. Does it have to be a full day? Or could it also be only a few hours?




3. Why are elections not held on the weekend in the USA as it is common in Europe?

The rules vary by state. The majority of states require employers to grant paid time off for workers to vote unless there is a substantial period outside of their normal working hours that they could vote. Vote411.org has a summary of every state's rules.

BusinessInsider has a similar summary, claiming that 30 out of 50 states require employers to allow people to leave early to vote.

In Minnesota, for example,

You have a right to take time off work to vote without losing your pay, personal leave, or vacation time.
Your employer must pay you for the time you need to vote, if it falls within your scheduled work time. Your employer cannot require you to use personal leave or vacation time (see Minnesota Statutes 204C.04 and 204C.08 subd. 1d)
_{from the Minnesota Secretary of State website, https://www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/election-day-voting/time-off-work-to-vote/}

As for "why not have it on a weekend", Wikipedia has this to say:

A uniform date for choosing presidential electors was instituted by the Congress in 1845. Many theories have been advanced as to why the Congress settled on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.[5] The actual reasons, as shown in records of Congressional debate on the bill in December 1844, were fairly prosaic. The bill initially set the day for choosing presidential electors on "the first Tuesday in November," in years divisible by four (1848, 1852, etc.) [...]

In 1845, the United States was largely an agrarian society. Farmers often needed a full day to travel by horse-drawn vehicles to the county seat/parish seat to vote. Tuesday was established as election day because it did not interfere with the Biblical Sabbath or with market day, which was on Wednesday in many towns.

Since then, there simply has not been the political will to pass a change.

While this is true for some people, the number affected is likely to be low.

• Polling places are generally open for at least 12 hours, so being unable to vote due to work would mean you would need a very long commute or be working very long hours.




• Depending on your state and your circumstances you should be able to vote early or by post if you can't get to your local polling place on election day. However this requires planning ahead and the details vary across the country, so some eligible voters might not get through the bureaucracy.

For those who find they need to take time off it depends on the employer. Most employers will allow a vacation day given enough notice. This will be paid, but come out of the annual vacation allowance. Some employers will allow half days, others don't. Some may simply refuse to allow that particular day to be taken off on the grounds of staff shortage. Simply not turning up is a violation of your employment contract, not an "unpaid vacation day".

Of course US elections are so finely balanced that even a small number of voters can make a difference.

No, that's not true. I have never taken unpaid time off to vote.

(a) The polls are typically open for 12 hours or more, while most people work 8 hours. So many people leave for work a little early and stop to vote along the way, or vote after work.

(b) In most places and for most elections, it doesn't take that long to vote. Yes, sometimes there's a long line and you have to wait, but this is relatively rare. So many people just take a break, run out and vote, and then come back to work. I suppose whether you can do this depends on what kind of job you have, but I've never had a problem doing it. Many also vote during their lunch break. Your voting place is normally near your home, so if you work far from home this may be impractical.

(c) Even if the nature of your job or circumstances are such that you have to take time off to vote, I don't know any reason why it would have to be unpaid time. Take a vacation day. Or more likely, half a vacation day.

Why doesn't the US hold elections on weekends? Good question, a lot of Americans say that would be a better idea.

I have heard that Americans came up with Tuesday as a good day because 200 years ago most Americans were self-employed farmers, and so the only day when they had a specific time commitment was Sunday, when they went to church. And it could take many hours to get from their farm to the polling place, so they wanted to allow the farmers to go to church on Sunday, then have all day Monday to travel, and so Tuesday was a good day to vote. I don't know if this is true. I've read it several places but I've never found any quotes from laws or people at the time to document it. Seems to me that if the goal was to avoid interfering with Sunday church services, why not vote Wednesday or Thursday to give the maximum time for travel each way? And just how far did people live from the voting places in those days?