Why Do Americans Vote on Tuesdays?

Y'know, I rarely if ever miss an election. Even the smallest local ones. Is this because I'm just that awesome and civic-minded a person? Hey, maybe. But there are also a lot of things that make it easier for me to make that choice, such as:

1. For my entire adult life, I've had white-collar jobs with flexible schedules where I never had to worry that taking too long for lunch would result in me getting fired.
2. For my entire adult life, I have owned a car and thus had no problem getting to polling places.
3. I have always lived in small towns and rural areas, so the lines at the polls are usually fairly short.
4. I have no children, and therefore my non-work time is entirely my own, with no other obligations to get in the way of voting.

I'm just not going to assume that everyone else's life is as easy as mine.

Well, Texas does have early voting. Starts 2 weeks before actual voting day. Every week day, same hours. Which does help with getting the voters out. The news is only allowed to say how light or heavy voter turnout was that day.
I actually think Alphaman has a good idea.

What makes you say that? If an early voting location is experiencing problems of some sort, that's a story that can be reported. Otherwise, though, turnout is the only "news" regarding early voting because there aren't any results to report until the polls close on election day. The early voting results are always the first thing that the election officials release.

Vote by Mail: works like early voting, from the comfort of your home. Must be postmarked day before closes or physically dropped off at a ballot drop when polls close.
Early voting: Vote at the booth up to the day polls close, giving a good window for those that would be too limited with a single day.
Election Day National Holiday: All non transportation and emergency services shut down to allow voters to vote.
Compulsory Voting: failure to perform civic duty results in automatic jury duty. Those then randomly selected are compensated according to their wages.

Now combine the above.

It sounds like there are not enough polling stations to begin with. I've mentioned how easy voting is in The Netherlands, and turnout has never been below 73%, everyone automatically registered, voting with passport to prevent fraud, 14 hours to vote and a constitutional right to vote during work, voting by someone else if you allow it (sign a piece of paper you get with your voting permit and give them a copy of your passport).. but then, just like Alphaman mentioned, there are things that make this easier here:
- we're a tiny fucking country. My American sister-in-law was baffled by how almost every single town here just about blends into the next one.
- Public transportation is so good I've never needed a car and don't have a driver's license, so I can fairly easily get anywhere
- there are a zillion polling stations - there's one across the street, and there always has been one within 5 minutes walking distance from my home, and I've lived in a lot of different places - you can vote in train stations, schools, daycare centres, retirement homes, etc.

So if you live in a country like the US, where everything is far away from everything and people actually get in their cars to post mail (...) I would expect there to be even more polling stations. And yeah, why not longer opening hours or two days to vote?

You mean you have to show a photo ID to vote? That's racist!

Hey now, check your privilege.

Everything but that last bit. Many people find jury duty a major imposition as it is. Imagine having to knock on their doors and frog-march them to the courthouse.

@LizK, how do shift workers who "can't take time off" for any reason whatsoever cope with jury duty?

Not in any country where photo IDs are issued as a matter of course (i.e., any industrialized nation other than the U.S.).

Ah. So it's only evil if the US does it. Gotcha.

I don't think she said that. In other countries they give you an ID card (paid for by your taxes, but you still get one). In the US, you have to go out of your way to pay for one. If you're going to require an ID card to vote, why are you making people pay extra for it?

Perhaps you have a list of other countries that don't automatically provide their citizens with a photo ID?

This. Amazing how hard it is for some people to wrap their brains around it.

So I'm going out of my way to get a drivers license? Just asking.

Eh... yeah... sure...
But we are required to pay for them. Free passports because we pay taxes? This is not candyland, I'm afraid. They ask something around €50 or €60 for a passport, depending on if it is valid 5 or 10 years, and about €30-€50 for an ID card. I'll shock you even more: you have to have ID. You even have to carry ID with you at all times, officially, and you have to provide it if asked for it by a cop, or even the train or tram conductor, if the situation calls for it - i.e. you don't have a train ticket, you drive through red light (even on a bike), etc. Situations where you are (or will be - shoplifting) involved with the police in some way. If you can't show it, you get a fine on top of the one for whatever you did. Of course, people object to this, and getting stopped by the police for something silly should not be an excuse for them to ask for ID. They still do, probably, and you can try to object based on the human rights convention. Never tried it, though, never got asked to show ID.

-edit- btw a driver's license does count as ID, so you don't need a passport or ID-card if you have one.

Still racist. Or at least in America having to prove citizenship to vote is a racist plot to disenfranchise anyone trying to vote Democrat.

Was it the prize in your box of Cracker Jack, or did you have to, yanno, read the manual, take the written test, take lessons, pass a road test? (I realize road tests in some states are comical, but still something resembling "knowing how to drive your vehicle" is usually required, AFAIK).

Also, I realize this is a difficult concept, but not all Americans own cars.

If I'm not mistaken, 100% of citizens in the Netherlands over age 14 have passports, as opposed to 35% of Americans.

Your Social Security card is a valid ID.

If you'd ever paid your own gas bill, you'd know that a utility bill with your name and address on it is a valid ID.

"Valid ID" =/= "photo ID"

It is? Advise for anyone visiting Europe (or at least the Netherlands) - only passports, Dutch ID cards and a (Dutch?) driver's license is valid. If you need to visit a bank, an American photo ID will not even be accepted, you need your passport. In some stores even for credit card payments... we're backward like that

IOW, you have a private sector that requires certain documentation from its customers, and a central government willing to help its citizens to obtain that documentation. Ideally, that's the way it would work everywhere.

Out of curiosity, I'd imagine a lot of documents were lost during the war, and I'd imagine there was a concerted effort to restore papers to people whose files were destroyed. IOW, no one in the Netherlands their 70s or older has trouble proving who they are with a photo ID.

In this country, the passport is the only nationwide ID, and the majority of Americans don't have one. So each state gets to make its own rules for drivers' licenses (AFAIK, the only other form of photo ID considered valid), and the more adamant they are about "photo ID required," the more likely you are to find people who have lived and worked there all their lives who do not have one.

One example: Prior to the civil rights act of 1964 (and even, in some places, long after), black women in the South were frequently not allowed to give birth in "white" hospitals. Babies were usually born at home in the presence of a midwife, who wasn't necessarily required to register the birth.

No birth certificate = no way of getting a photo ID.

Which is just the way the rednecks want it.

If you don't drive and have no reason to drive, why go through all that?

I expect there's no frame of reference for "don't drive and have no reason to drive" among some posters here.

About a third to a half of those are false.

Hey, maybe where he comes from you do need to show a photo ID to borrow a library book. It might explain the illiteracy rate...

In California at least, you can get a regular ID card via the DMV without taking a driving test that works for everything that needs photo verification. I had one till last year when I got a drivers license.

Social Security cards do no not prove you are who you say you are, it only proves that you have a piece of paper that shows someone in this country is getting robbed by the government. They are also not a proof of that citizenship.

You have to have an ID to get the initial library card, dipshit.

...no you don't.

Is it racist to require an ID to purchase a firearm?

I'm pretty sure every state is like that.

Feeble Farmboy... please explain how one obtains proper ID in the first place.