Should We Change National Voting Day To Monday

This editorial by my classmate Javonnie is about low voter turnout in the United States, and how we could fix it. He believes that this is caused by people not being able to get time off of work.  Voting was originally scheduled on a Tuesday because that would help farmers - the largest occupation in the United States at the time. Javonnie’s argument is that in order to get people to vote, we should change when we vote to a Monday national holiday, such as Presidents’ Day.

            The claim put forth in this post is that if we change when we vote to a national holiday, people will already have time off so it will be more convenient to vote. National holidays are a chance for most people to get the day off, and often schools aren’t in session, allowing parents to expose their children to voting. That is a good argument, but it is incomplete. For starters, two thirds of states offer early voting, often including weekends. That gives ample opportunity to arrange a time to vote.  Also, not all employers give national holidays off, especially those with hourly jobs (such as food service and retail) which not only have the most unforgiving schedules but are often held by those in the 18-25 year old range – the highest demographic of non-voters. Finally, employers are already legally obligated to give their employees two hours off to vote, but often people either aren’t aware of this law or don’t take advantage of it.

                         

The idea of changing when we vote is a very good idea but it’s not enough. A much bigger problem is hiding behind the scenes - voter apathy. Choosing the leader of the United States – or any elected official - is not to be taken lightly. A voting education class should be a solid part of our nation’s curriculum. When people don’t know the importance of voting, they usually don’t vote. Most states already have government classes that we can insert voting education into. Make sure that kids know how and why to vote from first grade and teach them more and more and by the time they are 18, they can be educated voters.

Voting education could be one or two week each November, teaching major concepts about voting. Some things that should be taught include teaching first graders the importance of voting, and as you get older: how to vote using a digital voting machine, how to research a political campaign, how vote for the option you want - not strictly party lines, and how to read the legal “fine print” of propositions on the ballot.

In order for changing when we vote to help, citizens need to know why we vote.  Decreasing voter apathy could be solved by teaching school aged children why we vote. Between moving when we vote, and teaching our nation’s children how to vote, we will have more involved citizens in ten years.

Should we turn to a three party government system?

In President Washington’s Farewell Address to the United States, he warns us about the dangers of a two party system, even any form of a multi-party system. Party loyalty is likely to get in the way of a voter forming his/her own opinion. To make it worse, if there are only two options, you will pick the candidate you dislike the least, not an option that you actually want. When there are two parties, you will choose the “lesser of two evils,” or, if you are party affiliated, your party. The United States would be a better nation if we chose to stop being a two party country.

The United States has a history of always having two parties. Always two, never three. One can take the place of another,  as in the 1850s, when the Republican Party replaced the Whig Party. There is occasionally a third party or independent candidate who has gotten a large amount votes  - we have several independent senators right now. In presidential races, Ross Perot got nearly 19% of the popular vote in the 1992 presidential election (but no electoral college votes) and George Wallace got 13.5% of the popular vote, receiving 45 electoral votes, and winning five states in 1968.

One of the biggest advantages of having three parties is removing the false dichotomy of “I hate the Democrats, therefore, I must vote for the Republican.” or vice versa.  This false dichotomy allows for the divination of the political party. Each party’s media outlets will support their members to the end, and because the government helps fund both the media and the campaigns, it seems that the political parties resemble more and more the all-powerful Party in George Orwell’s 1984.

With only two parties there is a pendulum of power, and control will go from one side of the political spectrum to the other. With three parties, there is the advantage of the government not flipping back and forth from Republicans to Democrats and having to deal with the whiplash going from Left to Right to Left to Right. Because we have turned rival political parties into enemies, there is no interest in helping everyone involved, because you will be seen as a traitor to your party if you work for a bipartisan compromise.

Because we have never tried having more than two parties, we have never seen the benefits. If a new party were to arise, we would not have the pattern we have “enjoyed” for more than two hundred years. We would finally actually have what the people want, as opposed to the binary choice that they have been making. This is the way to get past the problems that have plagued American politics for years.