Editorial: We Should NOT Make Elections a Holiday

I don't think that we should make elections a holiday. The government would probably make elections a holiday in hopes of a higher voting rate, but the biggest reason why people don't vote is not because they don't have time, making the holiday useless and maybe even less effective than having elections on weekdays.

From a study done in 2012, out of 218,959,000 total Americans eligible to vote, only 126,144,000 people voted, coming at only 57.5 percent voting rate. While making elections a holiday might encourage some people to vote, it also might intrigue others to go on a vacation or just stay home and have a day off. Although "too busy" was the main excuse, or reason, why people didn't vote in the 2014 election at 28 percent, according to a survey done by The Washington Post, "not interested", "illness/disability" and "out of town" together come to 37 percent. I doubt that people couldn't find 45 minutes, maximum, to spare during their day, because they were "too busy."

Even if election days become a holiday, I predict that only the people who actively vote and the group of honest people who actually couldn't vote because they were too busy would vote. Having elections as a holiday has some risks, since it might backfire and trigger people to not vote and go on a vacation or have a day off. If people have their own plans on election days, they will still be "too busy" to vote. 

I think that the U.S. government should not make election days a holiday, since it has some risks of backfiring and losing people to vote, and it does not guarantee a higher voting rate, so it might not be effective.