Wellyopolis

October 5, 2004

why election day should be a national holiday

John Judis' TNR article on voter registration efforts is a good look at the pre-election ground game of registering people likely to vote for you.

For all the talk about money in politics, a lot of political victories still come down to labor, and volunteer labor at that. In the wake of the 2000 election, we heard some talk about how if election day was a national holiday more people would vote.

I'm sure that making election day a national holiday would help turnout some, but not a lot. After all, federal law already guarantees your right to take time off work to vote, and if your November 2 schedule is bad, then an absentee ballot isn't too hard.

No, what a national holiday for election day would do, is give more people the opportunity to help out their chosen political party on the day without having to take a vacation day. That would be a nice thing in a democratic country like this, a national holiday to get involved in politics.

Although things like phones and computers and Palm PDAs have raised the capital:labor ratio a little on election day, the ground work in an election campaign is still mostly about getting out the volunteer labor to remind people to vote, and get them to the polling booth.

The mechanics of that vary little from country-to-country. I'd hazard a guess, based on talking to people older than myself, that they haven't changed much over time.

Basically what you do is identify potential voters before election day ("the list"), and then on election day you work from "the list" in whatever way makes the most sense to get the most votes from it.

Volunteer labor is still the best way of getting the most votes out. People respond better to a real live phone call or door knock than a recorded message. In a somewhat banal way, it does keep people connected in a [small d] democratic way.

The organization of get-out-the-vote seems to vary little between New Zealand and the U.S.A., at least in large cities. Everyone coalesces at a central meeting point (usually a church or community center, with a 1950s era stove and coffee maker to add to the ambience), puts on whatever identifying motif they are allowed, and heads out to drop pamphlets on doorsteps, knock on doors, or pick up 'mobility impaired' voters who need help getting to the voting booth. Others call likely voters, and remind them its election day. Other people are required to monitor each polling place.

Perhaps some clever computer scientist will correct me, but there's not a lot of ways of doing any of that without lots of people.

In the absence of a national holiday, I encourage all of you to take a vacation and help whichever party you support, get out the vote on election day.

Posted by robe0419 at October 5, 2004 1:09 PM