7mo ago

Should Election Day Become A Federal Holiday? Weighing The Benefits And Drawbacks

ace-usa.org Should Election Day Become A Federal Holiday? Weighing The Benefits And Drawbacks | ACE

Election Day is always held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November during an election year. Congress codified this tradition in 1845 to account for

Is it time to make Election Day a federal holiday? 🗳️ Some say it would boost voter turnout and align the U.S. with other democracies, while others argue it could create challenges for hourly workers and cost millions. Dive into the debate over whether a federal voting holiday is the best way to strengthen democracy or if there are better solutions. Check out the full breakdown!

https://ace-usa.org/blog/research/research-votingrights/should-election-day-become-a-federal-holiday-weighing-the-benefits-and-drawbacks/

229 comments

Although the federal government cannot require private companies to observe holidays
JFC what a dystopian hellhole. It kills me they are so proud of their shitty living conditions.
- Wait really, why coulsnt they force them to?!? In Canada companies that are open pay huge fines. Companies that are deemed essential do not recieve fines but have to pay 2.5 Mult to employees and if the employee does not work they get a days pay.
  
  Money is God in America.
  Okay, let's give everybody holidays off.
  ...well, I guess we need essential services like police, fire, medical, etc.
  ...and if they're going to work, they're gonna need food, so restaurants should be open too.
  ...and if they all gotta get to work, we gotta have gas stations open as well.
  ...and with all these other people off, people are gonna vote then want the rest of the day to do things, so we should probably have stores and entertainment venues open also.
  And now all the "minimum wage" people are stuck working on a holiday, while the people who can afford to be off actually get off.
  Rinse and repeat for every current holiday.
- Oh, we are not proud of it. We’re trying to chip away at the absolutely fucked power structure, but the people in charge of the system have a vested interest in preserving it, with all of its fucked up little idiosyncrasies like this.

All of those drawbacks are bullshit.
Early voting and mail in ballots should be more available to everyone. That's not a reason not to make it a holiday.
Private employers can't be forced to observe a holiday. That's not a reason not to make it a holiday. People required to work could still go before or after work, and would see reduced wait times because public employees would be able to go during work hours.
Finding childcare for the day is a problem anyway, as polling places are often schools, and the kids are sent home anyway. If it was a holiday, you could take your kids with you to the polls and then go to the park. That's almost a reason not to make it a holiday, but not really.
If banks, post offices, and schools are all closed, a lot of businesses will also close because work slows down. Other employers, like retailers, food service, and entertainment venues like movie theaters would all see an uptick in business, and would probably offer extra pay for those shifts.
Yes to mail in ballots. Yes to early voting. Yes to a national election holiday. Reduce the barriers to voting. No to ID laws. No to voter roll purges. No to proof of citizenship requirements.
- Over here all employers have to give employees 4h to vote. So if it's open from 8 to 8 and you work from 8 to 4 they don't have to give you time off, but if you work 8 to 6 they have to cut your shift at 4 instead.
  
  That's a good system. Let's do that.
- I live overseas so I’m eligible for an absentee ballot.
  I filled it out and submitted it a few weeks ago.
  It was all done through the government website for my state and email.
  Couldn’t be easier.
  
  Everyone should be eligible for mail in or early voting.
- ID and citizenship requirements seem like pretty basic requisites to voting, what's wrong with those?
  
  Because not everyone has an ID or proof that they are a citizen, and in the United States, you're presumed innocent until proven guilty. When you register to vote, you fill out a form stating you are a citizen and elligible to vote. There are existing mechanisms to check that voters are eligible. If you lie or commit fraud, those are crimes. There's a paper trail, and if it were an actual problem, there would be proof that it's happening.
  Homeless people have the right to vote. Forgetful and disorganized people have the right to vote. Hermits and people who survive house fires have the right to vote. ID requirements or requiring proof of citizenship creates an unnecessary barrier that disenfranchises more legal voter than the illegal votes it prevents. Because that's the point of them, they want to stop legal voters from voting.
  
  Inconsistent access and inconsistent standards, for the most part.
  A classic example is how certain states (Texas, for instance) will assert that gun licenses qualify as a valid ID but state university student IDs will not. Another is in how IDs - like driver's licenses - have a fee associated with registration and renewal, which amounts to a poll tax. A third is that citizenship isn't necessarily a prerequisite for voting in municipal and state elections. So requiring someone to be a citizen before accessing a ballot becomes an unconstitutional burden at the state and local level.
  Then there's the fact that we already have a voter id system. It's called your voter registration card. You typically get one after you've registered to vote in your municipality. The fight over voter ID is that you need a second piece of identification on top of the registration card.
  Broadly speaking, if everyone was afforded equal access to a single uniform ID document at no cost, there wouldn't be a problem. But so much of the Voter ID rules don't establish homogeneous ID requirements. Implementation is left up to the states. So states with a history of hostility towards democratic rule can back-door disenfranchisement into the process of obtaining these documents.

Benefits: People get to exercise their constitutional right to participate in democracy without sacrificing their livelihood
Drawbacks: None
- Drawbacks: Stockholders don’t like it when the slaves don’t work
  
  Pissing off stockholders is a benefit
- I'm all for it as long as bars, restaurants, grocery stores, and shops close down too. Fast food workers and the like shouldn't have to show up to work when everyone else gets the day off to vote.
  
  This could be easily solved if we simply allowed voting to go on for a week, and mandated that every business must give every employee a day off during that week to go vote. Hell, it could be a month if we wanted. The only reasons to limit voting to a single day are malicious ones.
  
  Yet they're perfectly willing to shut the entire fucking government down willy-nilly because they didn't get some piece of pork barrel spending they promised their megadonors. Fucking buffoons.

No. All that needs to be done is make universal vote by mail the standard.
My state has been doing it for 24 years now, this will be the 7th Presidential election (2000, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24) and 13th Congressional election. It works, it increases voter participation, there's a built in paper trail, there's nothing to not like about it.
Remember how 2014 had a record low turnout for a mid-term election?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2014/11/10/voter-turnout-in-2014-was-the-lowest-since-wwii/
"the lowest it's been in any election cycle since World War II, according to early projections by the United States Election Project.
Just 36.4 percent of the voting-eligible population cast ballots as of last Tuesday, continuing a steady decline in midterm voter participation that has spanned several decades. The results are dismal, but not surprising -- participation has been dropping since the 1964 election, when voter turnout was at nearly 49 percent."
Meanwhile, in my state:
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2014/11/voter_turnout_of_695_percent_i.html
"Turnout in this fall's election reached 69.5 percent, just half a percent short of turnout in 2010 and 2006 and 1.5 percent better than in 2002, Secretary of State Kate Brown said Wednesday.
More than 1.5 million Oregonians cast ballots, a record high for a non-presidential election, while nearly 700,000 registered voters sat out."
- I got home last night from work, voted, and ate dinner. Got up to go to work and tossed the ballot in my mailbox this morning. It was amazing. Being able to get an absentee ballot in NY has been absolutely wonderful.
  I am a bit worried about my signature though lol I can't remember if I signed with my stupid fresh out of highschool "script" signature on previous ballots that I used on my social security card, or my general signature I've been using for everything for decades now...
  
  I mean, if it gets rejected, they will let you know. Good news is you can always re-register and update your signature.
  Here, we have the motor voter registration, so it's the same signature as my drivers license.
- There is one argument against everyone voting by mail that I accept:
  People could be making "let's go vote together"-meetups to make sure their friends are voting what they "should" - which would destroy freedom and privacy of the vote which are fundamental.
  The same can also happen in abusive relationships where one partner can take away the freedom to vote what they want from the other by standing behind them when they fill out their ballot.
  Voting by mail is safe, but because of those two it should NEVER be the de-facto standard. It's great to have more people voting - but whoever can should still vote personally if possible.
  I know the setup of the voting booths is way worse in the US than here in Germany so both the way to them and the lines in front of them are longer, so that decision might flip towards voting by mail quicker, but imho voting in person should remain the standard - just because noone can look over your shoulder when you're making your cross in that setting
  
  Generally, it's less "lets go vote together!" than it is "lets drop off our ballots together!"
  Coercive voting is a crime, in 24 years we haven't seen an incidence of it yet, but that was one of the FUD arguments when we voted for it.
  "What's to stop an employer from requiring employees to bring in their ballots and vote the company line?"
  Well, it's a crime. If you don't trust your employees to vote, do you trust that not one will rat you out?
- The military has allowed it since the civil war.
  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/debate-over-mail-voting-dates-back-civil-war-180976091/
- Same way for Colorado. It's all the benefit of electronic voting, but with the added safety of paper ballots. And it's a format we're all familiar with from school -- bubble in our answer (just with a pen instead of a number 2 pencil), and then turn it in. The counters feed the ballots into the counting machine, which tallies up the votes, then the ballots are stored in nice boxes, which can be retrieved and hand-counted on the off-chance the machines get hacked or otherwise...tampered with (Tina Peters, I'm looking at YOU...as you go to jail for 9 years! :3).

Many argue that advocates should redirect their efforts to create early voting options
Additionally, opponents emphasize that private employers are not required to recognize or give paid time off for federal holidays.
Both arguments against it are whataboutist horseshit. Anyone claiming these as reasons not to also make it a holiday would almost certainly also be against "okay, let's do all three", because they are arguing in bad faith.
- Can you imagine a world where workers get the day off as a recognized federal holiday but because of early mail in voting they took advantage of they get just a day off during some of the busiest time of the year to get chores and other tasks done and it inspires people to participate more actively and proactively because of the benefits that are overwhelmingly positive?
  Its a shame that apparently there might be some lost profits for a day so its apparently impossible, and now we have to make other excuses as if they are legitimate.
  
  If only we could find a way to monotize it and get people buying random low quality junk to trade around so that corps still gets to profit off it.

"Those against making Election Day a federal holiday argue that such a large focus on one day is misguided, since almost 70% of ballots in the 2020 presidential election were cast before Election Day."
___
- These are the same people that think that more testing will make the number of COVID cases go up.
- My first thought as well. "We don't need to make it easier to vote on election day, because not many people vote on election day" - let's stop and think really hard about that for a minute.

Additionally, opponents emphasize that private employers are not required to recognize or give paid time off for federal holidays.
lol "we shouldn't fix this fucked up thing because this other thing is also fucked up"
that's a you problem, dog
- And the solution is right there in the sentence.
  
  Exactly.
  The solution here should be the federal government going, "Ooh! Good catch on that! Here's a law mandating that private employers give paid holidays for all federal holidays! Thanks for looking out for employees!"

So many things to fix about our broken democratic institutions. Every state should have mail-in voting as well as early voting. Every state should automate the registration of voters as much as possible as well. And sure, election day should be a federal holiday, or moved to Sunday or Saturday, at least.
Other things to work on: ranked choice voting and getting rid of the nasty racist holdover that is the EC. Also, we need to remove the special privileges that rural land has over people. Way too many ways our current system gives remote areas more representation than they should have...
- Good points except for Ranked Choice. That archaic voting system is a sort of poison pill.
  It doesn't actually solve any of the problems proponents claim it does, and it adds complexity and additional points of failure. It was designed in 1788, but rejected for use in France at the time due to the habit of eliminating the Condorcet winner. (The person who would win in a one on one election vs all other candidates)
  The bad idea was then reinvented in the early 1800s as the Single Transferrable Vote, with no fixes for that pesky Condorcet issue.
  No, the way to go is either the simplicity of Approval, or the more granular STAR. (STAR is the new hotness, designed this century, with the pitfalls of past systems in mind)
  Both systems are completely immune to the Spoiler effect while also allowing, or even encouraging the growth of third parties.
  
  My impression is that when most people mention "ranked choice" voting, what they really mean is "ranked choice voting with instant runoff" which is functionally identical to STAR voting.
  
  Specifically, which problem do you think that ranked choice proponents are incorrect about?
  Ranked choice voting does one thing, allows people to vote for the candidates they actually want and that's it. All kinds of people try to shoehorn in other ideas, but at the end of the day the one and only problem its intensed to solve is people having to vote for candidates they don't like.

Opponents counter that a holiday may not significantly increase turnout and could even create challenges for some workers.
Ok well can we collectively agree that the opponents to this are full of shit? Like, this is less than a no brainer. This is a negative brainer. In that to oppose a national election day holiday, your aim must be less people voting. There's one party that does well when less working people vote, and surprise surprise, it's the party that keeps denying us a federal election day holiday. GEE, I CAN'T IMAGINE WHY.
Trump said this week of Democratic voting proposals. “They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
From a 2020 Vanity Fair Article, discussing how Democrats wanted to make it easier/safer for people to vote during the pandemic.

Easier solution than trying to have a single day off for everyone:
Since early voting is a thing, all employers should be required to give workers 1 paid flex day during voting season so they can vote.
They can even tie the flex day to evidence that they actually voted, so it truly encourages voting instead of just being an extra day off.
- I don’t really think we need to police the extra day off. If someone was unable to vote that day for some reason, they shouldn’t be penalized.
  
  While I agree we should police it, have you ever worked for a big corporation, they are going to police it...
  
  The goal isn't to get people an extra day off, it's to get them to vote.
  When I go to a conference or take paid time for education I'm required to prove what I was doing.
  We should also fight to get people more general vacation time, sure. But as far as mandating days off for voting I think it makes sense to make sure that they use that day to vote.
  Otherwise we'll just end up with a lot of cheap weekend cruises popping up to take advantage of all the extra holiday time around elections with no increase in voter turnout.
- How are you going to have evidence of voting?
  
  Everyone that votes gets some variant of "i voted" sticker already, that changes every where, sooooo..
  
  Who cares about evidence of voting, you work enough days of the year, just take it for heavens sake. If I add up all days there are federal holidays in my country I get nearly 2 months worth and that is without paid or unpaid leave days you get from the employer
  
  As it is, they record who votes. It's how you can have multiple polling locations avaialbe but can only vote once.
  It's not a huge leap from that to being able to prove to your employer that you voted.
- Unless the day off can only be used on voting day I think people will use it for their own purposes.

In Germany we always have elections on Sundays so it's basically a public holiday (unlike in the US where stores are still open). There are enough places to vote (though you're assigned to the one in your district for statistical reasons) so you rarely have to stand in line. I've seen pictures of voting lines in the US and was shocked...
Mail-in votes are available to everyone and it's being used a lot but for many people going to the voting place in person has more meaning to it. Some even put on a suit, but that could also be because they are on the way to church.
Electronic voting was discussed but the consensus is that it's not safe enough.
The question if it should be a public holiday in the US is weird to me as it is a very clear YES and also YES people should definitely always get a day off on public holidays wtf
- I've seen pictures of voting lines in the US and was shocked...
  Yeah, but those aren't ubiquitous.
  If you live in a suburb or rural area you can count on a dozen nearby polling stations and a 5 minute in and out.
  If you live anywhere that supported the confederacy and might vote blue then you might have to deal with a 4-5 hour wait, coupled with provisional ballots that are not counted, voting roll purges, and other minor issues.
  I guess what I'm saying is those crazy lines aren't too much of an issue so long as you try to vote in a part of the country Hitler himself didn't write of as an example of genetic enforcement to follow in Mein Kampf.
  
  Thanks for the clarification!

In France, voting day is always a Sunday. And if you work on a Sunday (most people don't), your boss has to schedule your working day so that you can go and vote.
- Yeah, because in France they're a hair trigger away from setting shit on fire, like all the time.
  
  If that's what it takes, I guess

This is a popular wish from MAGA types who have been told that mail and early voting is fraudulent, which isn’t supported by evidence.
If you can vote early or by mail, there is no need for a holiday on the one voting day.
At the same time, we can’t expect every grocery store worker, police officer, air traffic controller, and truck driver, and everyone else, to be off simultaneously on the same day.
- I'm pretty far from a maga, and I fully support a federal holiday for it. It accentuates the importance of voting for democracy to thrive, IMO.
  But I also think mail-in and early voting options should be a federal requirement as well. Right now states can impose limits on who is eligible for mail in, and that's a huge problem.
  To me its not one or the other, I think both should be done.
- At the same time, we can’t expect every grocery store worker, police officer, air traffic controller, and truck driver, and everyone else, to be off simultaneously on the same day.
  Here in BC, in Canada, you're just guaranteed four hours off to vote. I think that with easier mail-in-voting (also easy to do here) would help you guys a lot.
- You can instead have elections on the weekend, which gives more opportunity to vote without requiring a public holiday. Nobody would choose Tuesday if they were designing the system today.
  And yes, early and mail voting should be universally implemented as well.

as a retail worker, i don't ever get any other holidays off, why would my employer (or the insame amount of entitled shoppers) respect some new holiday?
- They probably won't, but don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. This improves the situation. Just because it doesn't help everyone isn't a good enough reason not to do it at all.
- If only we had some type of... I don't know what the word for it would be... Well, some sort of system that the people in a society agree to be governed by that could force these businesses to respect this holiday...
  Oh well.
- Do you get any extra pay for working on a holiday?
  
  Hah!
  Good one!
  Having worked retail in my younger days it's maybe the worst role I've ever had (tied with the sales aspect of a job I had later on in my career).
  Shit pay, shit hours, ever changing schedules, horrible management, toxic work environment, frequent abuses of employees (shit like working long hours with no breaks, surprise shift extensions because someone else called off, etc.), ridiculously petty rules and policies, etc.
  The idea of any sort of pay for anything other than working the equivalent hours (or more...retail is notorious for trying to get free labor off the clock) is a fairy tale.
  
  Never got paid holiday pay as a medic, firefighter, or county technical rescue. It was all just another day - 24/7/365..........

Yes, and I also want a hotdog after voting (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_sausage).
- Now that's a fantastic idea. How about options? Democracy grilled cheese? Democracy pizza? All food trucks get a fixed tax break to serve a single free food item pp at polling places on voting days! Basically paid advertising.
  edit: Democracy TACOS!!!!
  I'm gonna need to go lobby now... or at least do some market research....

In Australia we have pre-poll voting (early voting), mail-in ballots, and every election day is a Saturday - with democracy sausages.
- And, importantly, preferential voting.
  
  glancing at the current crop of Australian politicians
  Seems like the system is still fucked.

Make voting take a week and limit campaigning to 90 days before the end of that week.

There were some good stats in there, but this wasn't anything groundbreaking. I'm totally in favor of making Election Day a federal holiday, it's arguably the most important day for the continuance of our democracy after all. BUT any action must take into account the fact that so many Americans don't get federal holidays off, and employers can't be forced to give them that time off. So there would have to be a fund or subsidy available to employers to continue paying their workers on this new day off. It should also be a kind of superholiday so even private employers are forced to observe it.
This, and getting rid of the electoral college should be a priority once we've soundly defeated the orange turd and can take a couple breaths.
- Mail in voting across the board could be better than a federal holiday. In Washington, I get everything I need to vote in the mail: a ballot, a voter's guide, a postage paid envelope. I literally don't have to wear pants to vote. I can take a week to make a decision about something before I wander over to the nearest mailbox to drop off my ballot.
  Never having done it, voting in person sounds awful.
  
  Yeah, this is actually a better solution. There’s no legitimate non-partisan reason I can think of for why anyone would be against universal mail in voting.
  Same in California, and I definitely need that extra time to review the ballot and figure out how I’m voting on ballot measures and for which local officials. The ballot is huge and relatively complicated, so I can’t imagine doing that in person either.
  
  Agreed to your last statement. I have only ever voted by mail in ballot and anything else seems inhumane.
  
  TBF, the only thing stopping you from not wearing pants to the polls is the weather.

The only reason to not make voting day a holiday is because the very people preferring you not vote are losing profits and power don’t want the people worked the hardest to have a say in changing the system.

Easy just change it to Feb 29th and it’s a holiday. Once every 4 years. Nobody will forget it.
- What will you do in 2100?
  
  We’ll all be dead by then
- Actually brilliant
  
  Except that elections happen every year....
  
  It's really not.
- ... That sounds like it would be great.
- Midterms: "Are we a joke to you?!"

The Republican Party benefits from low voter turnout, so they'd block this at every opportunity.
- they've publicly admited they cant win fair elections.

Of course it should be.

Cons: wealthy people will lose money...

It's almost as if people should be paid enough and have enough PTO to live and enjoy it, as well as vote.

Yes.

Would rather just have voting being more than 1 day. Make it a week plus mail in voting.
Have enough states screwing around with voting locations to limit it to just a day
- I was surprised to learn that there are still states where you can only vote one day. California and Texas have allowed early voting for over 40 years and it's so easy to vote. Texas even passed a law requiring polls to be open at least 9 hours the first week of voting and at least 12 hours the second week and final day of voting. I've only waited in line twice and the longest I've waited was 10 minutes.
  
  Yeah I don't get lines in Ohio either. Maybe 2-3 mins if I go at a busy time.

Presidential elections occur on leap years where we just plain add an additional day to the year on our calendar. This isn't as complex an issue as the article wants it to seem.

It should be

Yes. Yes it should.
- Or, you know, at least make it happen on a weekend, like normal countries do. The whole thing is such a weird quirk among so many other weird quirks that serve no purpose.
  
  That doesn't solve for people who work irregular shifts and don't get weekends off, but may not have access to early or mail-in voting (which is where Republicans will take their insane restrictions if a holiday is made).

We always have elections on a Sunday (you go to your assigned voting place, usually a school) and there's I think two week period where you can vote in (official voting places placed in) libraries, malls, all kinds of places and you can pick whichever so there's ample opportunity for everyone. I think mail-in system where you can vote at home and deliver the vote by mail is just for those who are abroad. There's also the possibility of having people visit you at home to facilitate voting, meant for those who can't move.
- Here in Brazil elections are always on Sunday, vote is mandatory and everybody vote the same day. By 8pm all votes are counted and the result is known.
  I always vote after lunch and it's always empty. Because the vote is electronic, it's very fast. I get there (we usually vote at schools too), show my photo ID (I use the ID app on my phone), use my fingerprint to unlock the voting machine, type the numbers and confirm, they return my phone and give a coupon to prove I voted and then I go eat a meat pastel and ice cream.
  
  We don't use electronic voting machines here. It's all paper ballots. Vote counting is done for pre-voting day ballots so that the result of those is known at 20.00 and only then (at the same time the voting places close) they start counting the voting day ballots (well technically it's the preliminary count after which the ballots are send to a recount for next day to check for errors). Calculating is done by hand but the result is known usually at around 23, before the recount and the actual final result is confirmed on next Wednesday at 18.00. But that's a formality.
  After voting we usually do coffee or some do beer. "Election coffee" or "election beer" we call it.

Let's just swap from Thanksgiving (a holiday about racism and genocide) to Election Day. So there's no net cost. Just swapping from one day to another.
- I don't really think of Thanksgiving in its original context at this point. I think of it as a day for family and togetherness. I wish we could just rebrand it as that and drop all of the fake, sappy stories about pilgrims and native americans getting along.
- I was thinking either Memorial Day or Veteran's Day, since they seemed kinda redundant. Alternatively, President's Day being moved to the election day seems like it would make sense.
  Thanksgiving is practically a religious holiday at this point. Can't deprive Americans of their celebration of gluttony and genocide. There's a parade and everything.

Unless they're going to do something like require octuple pay for anyone working on an election day, which in turn would fuck up the financial math of any business thinking about opening that day, making it a holiday won't fix anything.
Mandate vote by mail federally. While your at it, copy Mexicos voter ID system and give everyone free voter ID's.

Shithole country. Honestly, together with the issues like voter roll purging and winner takes it all. How can you take this "pro/con" discussion even seriously?
The real question should be why the US is so undemocratic, what the forces are that drive this minority rule and prevent a more free and open society.

Doesn't matter either way as the only people guaranteed off on federal holidays are government employees.

Christmas doesn't create challenges for hourly workers, and noone that matters cares if it costs companies millions.

Yes it should be a holiday! Why are we even talking about this?

Just make it a Saturday and make it quick and easy to vote?
Then people can go to work before or after voting if they need.

There is zero reason not to have more holidays.

Here in Canada All employees who are Canadian citizens and 18 years of age or older are entitled to have three consecutive hours off on Election Day to vote. Voting hours in the Eastern time zone are from 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. If an employee’s hours of work do not allow for three consecutive hours off within this period, the employer must give them sufficient time off to meet the requirement of three consecutive hours.

I forget what country it is, but one has a rule that you can only vote in your place of birth on a holiday. So, people come together for reunion and they all go out and vote. Swell idea, IMO.
- Uh...not a great idea.
  Suppose my parents made the decision to move to Alaska instead of Colorado for my birth, then moved to Colorado where I grew up. I'd be asked to vote in Alaska's elections, despite having no ties there, no stake in the outcome, and no reason to care about the issues. And if I'm to vote a Colorado ballot, why not let me vote that ballot from Colorado? If I want to go to a family reunion, I'll go to a family reunion. I don't need to be forced to go to one by being forced to vote in a state I no longer live in.

In Canada every Canadian is guaranteed four contiguous hours off work on election day while the polls are open to vote.

this is the pinnacle of stupid writing. Calling this "Research" is nonsense. You should have the day off if you have an "I voted" sticker. Not only should election day be a day off but so should:
Primaries
Special Elections
Voter Registration deadlines.

OK, so make all voting days a holiday?

would definitely ensure higher turnout in most locations,but as is policy where i work no days off for holidays other than xmas and tday.

IMHO, yes, but you have to bring proof of having voted the next work day for it to count. And the State should respond to mail-in ballots with "I Voted" stickers - mail in ballots have deadlines, so maybe It'd be enough time for a round trip. Or if you drop off the ballot at a post office, postal workers can hand you a sticker. More money for the USPS; it's a win-win. Change the I voted sticker each year; counterfeiting would be more work than it's worth.
There'd be forgeries, lax enforcement, whatever; the point isn't to have a hard enforcement, like money, but just to encourage people to vote.
We'll never be a country that mandates voting, like some do, but anything that encourages people to vote is a good thing.
P.S. if we can't convert to a 4-day work week country, I think we should slowly create more federal holidays that fall on specific week days, until we have 52 of them.
- Oh I love this but let's make the incentives better.
  Every company gets a tax deduction for each employee that votes
  Each locality, county, state gets a tax bonus from the federal government for every election it has and for each person who votes
  each person who votes is eligible to receive a tax stimulus the following year
  All of this can be done today. Voter participation information is actually available at the local level. It's why I always get fliers for Republicans since I vote in their primaries. (My vote is more effective there than in the Democratic primary)
  
  If this is your platform, I'll vote for you. Throw in a little RCV, and I'll canvas, too.

Yes. There are no drawbacks.

It you could vote on Sundays? At least two other countries do that

Why? Just make voting more accessible. In my country, the Netherlands, there are just many voting locations that open early in the morning and close at 9PM. Like during an election day there are 3 voting stations within a 5 minute walk from my home and there are voting stations at every major train station. You can vote almost everywhere. No excuse to not vote even if you have to work that day.
There is no point in making Election Day a holiday when you don’t fix voting accessibility first. Why create a holiday and then waste it for standing in line?
- American businesses are not required to give employees paid time off to vote, and the required amount of time that they have to allow is just a couple hours. So if someone works far away from where they live and/or has 12 hour shifts or something, it becomes a choice of getting paid or getting to vote. And the Republicans have done a fabulous job of making sure that voting is as time-consuming as possible in poor and non-white districts by limiting the number of polling sites. Some people have to wait 8+ hours to vote, and the Republicans have made it illegal to give people who are waiting in line food or water.
  Also, you have to vote in the precinct you live in/are registered in. You can't go to just any polling site on election day.
  
  Improving voting accessibility will solve that. It takes 10 minutes for people to vote if there is a line in my country. They can also only vote in their own municipality and don’t get paid time off to vote. Making it a holiday still doesn’t solve the 8+ hours waiting time. People still won’t vote if they have to wait that long, they would rather enjoy their day off.
  
  American businesses are not required to give employees paid time off to vote, and the required amount of time that they have to allow is just a couple hours.
  Which is it?

Yes.
Moving on.

Even easier. Make the shit electronic. Stop pussy footin around and make it available on the Internet.
- I know enough about the internet to know that this would end up being a bad idea. Not to say that there isn't a way to correctly implement it (I honestly don't know). But even if there is, should we trust them to do it correctly? Our (US) government full of octogenarians?
  
  Why? Everything is on the Internet. You can buy houses and bank on the Internet. There are scams sure. But the physical votes are still tabulated and entered into the fuckin Internet!
- As a programmer I really really don't think this is an idea we're capable of implementing in a way that's safe/secure/etc.
  See also: https://xkcd.com/2030/
  
  You aren't the only programmer in the world
- One more absolutely not.
  Let's follow two votes. Vote #1 was cast in Colorado.
  It starts as a paper ballot sent by standard ("snail") mail from our election division to me, the voter. I am notified it's coming.
  I mark this ballot like I would an exam, just with a blue or black pen and not a #2 pencil. I'm going to do this in front of my computer, with ballotopedia open and key issues already marked.
  I drop this ballot off at the Election Division drop box. I am notified they received it.
  If there are problems, I am notified that I need to come in and 'cure' them.
  Once it's accepted, I am notified, and then it's scanned in to a tabulator. Once it's scanned, it's stored in a secure box.
  On Election Day, it's counted, and the results are posted.
  If the election is close, or there is real evidence of criminality, the ballot is retrieved from its secure box and electronically or hand-counted again.
  Vote 2 was cast in Louisiana.
  The voter must go to a designated voting centre on a voting day.
  The ballot is voted on an electronic machine that does not generate a paper trail.
  The vote counts are stored within the voting machine.
  If the election is stolen, there is no way to go back and check. The machines say what the machines say, and it's trivial to engage voting shenanigans without any paper trail to track it down.
  I'm going to fight hard for my system, buddy. You can keep your internet voting.

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