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Because they don’t want the workers voting.
If you “can’t go to the ballot because you need to work” you are a plebeian, and so they have a way of excluding you while technically not excluding you.
A lot of modern oligarchy is powered by these technicalities. Technically everyone has a “right to” participate in the system, but the whole apparatus is rigged in such a way that in material reality only the same nobility caste that has called the shots since the bronze fucking age gets to call the shots.
By law employers are required to allow their workers an opportunity to vote. The problem is other stuff like taking their kids to school and having to go to work right after and by the time you make it to the poll through rush hour traffic, the line is out the door and they shut it down and don’t let you vote even though you waited for an hour.
So the bare minimum that even my little Eastern European hellhole could do was that a polling place closing means that those in line can still vote.
A poll worker gets in line exactly at closing time, and those in front get to vote however long that takes. It’s not hard to organize.
Yeah, it’s exactly the same in the very opposite end of Europe (and about as poor) - Portugal - which I know becaused I maned the polling places a couple of times and read the rule book.
Thanks for your service, unironically
People generally do it because they’re in a political party, plus you get paid for it though I think it takes many months for it to come in (never really worried enough about it to keep an eye out for that money coming into my bank account) and it doesn’t add up to much per hour for what’s a really long day (from about 6 AM to around 10 - 12PM depending on how long it takes to count the votes of one’s polling station).
It’s an interesting experience if a bit tiring.
The thing is
“The law says it has to happen” doesn’t mean it happens.
And the weaker labour protections are in your country, the more bosses can walk all over their employees.
In the US, with their so-called “at-will” employment system, you can be fired at any time for any reason, and if you need the job to like, live, you won’t even bring up your legal rights.
Mind you even on countries where polling happens exclusively on Sunday (like mine!) there are other subtle ways The Poors tm are kept from enfranchisement. “Voting happens on a work day” is just one of the ways it happens in one of our world’s oligarchies.
If you’re in food service, election day is likely an all hands on deck situation. Incredibly shitty. And here in the US a ton of people work weekends. I didn’t get a job that had weekends off until my mid 30s.
My roommate asked for time off to vote; her employer literally laughed at her. Now, there is legal recourse there, and she would have likely won and even gotten awarded a money judgment.
But she needed that job without interruption. This was in Canada, by the way.
This is why you don’t ask.
Also, you don’t really need a whole day. I’m also Canadian. Employers are required to allow you time to do it, not an entire day.
I would phrase the question like this: “I need to take time to go vote. Would you prefer I take the morning or afternoon off?”
If they so no to both, you say “you know it’s illegal not to allow me time off to vote, right?”
I’ve changed careers since the last election, but as a driver I’d just say “I’m going to swing by the polling place in my way to or back from wherever” and it was never a problem.
It really depends on how much you need that job to like
Not be homeless
And how hard it was to get the job in the first place.
You can make your legal rights count if you have options.
If you don’t, you let your boss walk all over you and thank them for it.
I mean you do have options. We have the labour board here in Canada.
You don’t tell your employer you’re talking to them. You let them contact the employer. They can’t fire you while an investigation is ongoing.
A job I had for a couple of years had really annoying emails sent based on badging in/out. When I’d come back from voting I’d get one for some out of office violation and would just reply to HR with a link to the MN statute requiring paid time off for voting:
https://www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/election-day-voting/time-off-work-to-vote/
The law also doesn’t require employers to pay for that time, so many can’t afford to take the time off even if their employer is chill about it.
Oh no it’s never paid, but they have to allow them time to vote. Usually that means wake up at 6am to get to the polls by 7
it’s never paid
As a salaried worker your pay will not change just because you took time off to vote. So it is de facto requires to pay for the time, but only for those who already have the privilege of a salaried position.
Edit to make my point even more clear: the current law is structural discrimination against poor people.
You are arguing semantics on whether it’s paid or not. No one cares. The point is, paid or not, your job has to give you time to vote, usually at the employees expense.
Thanks for your reply! I am not arguing semantics at all. I am pointing out an inherent disadvantage faced by lower paid workers in an unfair system. Which is the entire point of this discussion. The fact that you don’t care about a few hours of paid time perfectly demonstrates that the privileged benefactors of the current system don’t even realize that others are being actively oppressed through technicalities of the law.
I’m so glad my state has mail-in voting. Sorry buddy.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”
Sure, here you go: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7329
One of many such bills.
Take a look at the sponsors. I’ll give you 1 guess at which party would vote it down, because it would hurt them in elections.
It’s the same reason Puerto Rico will never be a state.
“We”? Who are “we”? Star fleet?
People have to remember that this is the Internet, this thing is global.
Even if you made it a federal holiday, the wage slaves would still have to work.
how are federal holidays not mandatory time off dude there’s a reason they exist. what a backwards country.
edit: apparently the concept is so foreign that people don’t understand how these things work. of course there will be exceptions but of you work on a holiday you get a full day’s salary as overtime. this usually assures employers only force work when necessary because most would rather not pay extra. and of course further exceptions can be made into the law. no one said life should stop when there’s a holiday.
Black and white rules always end up fucking someone over. For example I work in the entertainment industry and a lot of my income is from working on holidays, specifically because they are holidays. That aspect of my job is not exploitative, and if the option were taken away I would have big problems.
Yep. Your boss can still say no and just give you a day in lieu
I work in a hospital. Unfortunately, people don’t stop being sick on holidays, so someone has to work. I don’t see how it could be different in any other country.
At least make it a sunday lol, a tuesday wtf?!!
It’s on Tuesday because that was actually convenient with the flow of business at the time. Most were Christian and wouldn’t work or travel on Sunday if possible, it often took a day’s travel to get to the nearest town with a polling place, and Wednesday was market day.
If Sunday and Wednesday are right out and you need a day’s travel time (which also can’t be Sunday or Wednesday) you’re basically left with Tuesday or Friday. And if you’re going to be in town for the market anyways then Tuesday makes more sense.
It is in November because that’s after the biggest harvests, but not so far after that the weather is likely to be rough. And it’s the Tuesday after the first Monday so that it can’t overlap with All Saints Day.
On the upside it could be changed with a regular old law, it doesn’t require an amendment or anything.
Some countries let you vote for 2-3 weeks, others it’s a sunday. Tusday was maybe the best a thousand years ago but who cares? Thanks for the interesting history lesson though!
Tusday was maybe the best a thousand years ago but who cares?
Closer to two hundred years ago, since the law in question was passed in 1854. But the point was it’s that way for a reason, and that reason was a good reason at the time it was done. It seems so weird now because of social change that has since made it inconvenient.
It can also be changed if Congress wanted to, as it’s just a regular law and not part of the Constitution or something else that would be harder to change.
Good point, the real solution is to spread out the election and make voting easier, as in mail-in.
Because corporations own you and this means they can pressure how you vote in key states.
You know what?
Take the day, fam. Go vote, get some ice cream, and have a mental health day. You’ve earned it.
Voting makes me sick. That’s why I call in sick. The fact my employer needs to give us 3 hours off to vote makes it that much more plausible; as no one would skyve off a half-day.
Be well. Don’t be sick. Or do, if voting makes you sick too. I feel a cough coming on even talking about it. Maybe a migraine too. Definitely feel dizzy. Some kinda verklempt. Tawk amengst yeselves.
I used to agree that election day should be a bank holiday, but many many still have to work on bank holidays. Now I’m in a populous red state and in-person early voting has been available for years.
I voted early in 22 and in 20. Not sure how old the law is. I think I can vote early all the way up to Saturday, maybe Sunday. too lazy to check.
I think this is a better solution, mail voting notwithstanding. Voting doesn’t have to go on for a whole month, but a week or two early makes sense.
Anyways I’ll be voting sometime between now and Tuesday.
I’m in Texas and we’ve had damn near 2 weeks of early voting. I’m going in on Friday. If you don’t vote, you don’t have a ton of good excuses, especially with mail in voting.
Not that I ultimately disagree, I think election day should be a national holiday, including midterms.
Also in Texas and I was surprised at the line for early voting when I went. Usually I just walk in and walk out because there’s no one there before election day.
Some states (I want to say Mississippi?) have no early voting and only absentee ballots with a good excuse. So yeah, a federal holiday or some provision for time off to vote would be awesome.
No need to make it a day off, just need to guarantee enough hours to vote (in Canada employers need to adjust your schedule so you have 4h off work while voting stations are open, in most cases they don’t need to do anything because they’re open late enough that after work is 4h)
Bcs the few are important & worshipped, the many are expendable and barely deserving of human-level acknowledgment.
/s
(or at least I wish it was sarcasm)Isn’t voting open for much longer than 1 day? Polls are already open…and so is early voting and mail-in ballots, etc. Election Day is just like the last day when (allegedly) the winner is decided. Not really a point for a full-on, everything closed type holiday, or even a “bank holiday” like President’s Day.
Depends on your state and county/parish. Voter suppression and lack of funding means that many “red” states have fewer voting locations and even fewer early voting locations. My family who live in a Republican county in a Republican state have only two vote early locations that are picked to be least efficient (both close to each other on an extreme end and less populated portion of a huge county). They would have to drive 45 minutes to get there in good traffic. It makes it difficult for folks who may be poor and working class to get out.
I’ve been mailing in my ballot for years. Sitting at home and researching each candidate and proposition at my convenience is a game changer. (This year, my ballot had 15 propositions to unravel!) I don’t need to worry about getting to the polls - or dealing with the armed, lingering asshats.
EVERYONE should be mailing in ballots.
You don’t need to mail in to research candidates.
At least in my state, you can just see who is on the ballot weeks and weeks ahead of time.
EVERYONE should be mailing in ballots.
Not everyone gets that option from their state.
I think they’re just saying that everyone should have the option and use it.
Maybe.
Regardless, it should be clear that not everyone has this option today. There is no reason we should be saying things like “You have no excuse” like we are elsewhere.
There are more options than their used to be, but not everywhere, not for everyone, and its still not as easily accessed as it should be.
Which sucks.
Only eight states have automatic mail-in voting: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington state, plus Washington DC.
Some states have No Excuse Required mail-in options, while others have Excuse Required mail-in options. I’ve lived in all three types of states. The automatic (blue) state was best, and No Excuse (purple) state made the mail-in request easy, but I had to jump through hoops and lie my ass off to mail my ballot in the Excuse Required (red) state.
Every state should have automatic or No Excuse mail-in ballots.
They absolutely should all be automatic.
We should also, IMO, have it as a holiday. As well as early voting options everywhere. Really everything to encourage participation.
Unfortunately not the case today…
Put $500 cash in an envelope and mail it to yourself. If you don’t trust that, drop your ballot in person. I voted yesterday and got to scan my ballot into the machine.
I agree, giving people the day off to encourage voting makes more sense than honoring unnamed presidents (Washington and Lincoln if you’re too young to remember). Repubs overall won’t go for this because they know more voting is bad for them. Wacky, huh?
Dems win if voter turn out is too high, so Republican block attempts to make it a day off. So why didn’t Biden push it through when Dems last had the house and the senate?
why didn’t Biden push [it] through when Dems last had the house and the senate?
I think that’s only been 4 months out of the last 50 years, and I bet there was some pretty fundamental stuff to unfuck first. And then they ran out of time.
Because they’ve never had the senate. You need 60 votes to get past the fillabuster and to fix THAT you’d need Sinama and Manchin to agree to that.
Because Dems need something to cry about every cycle. They could do so many things if they actually wanted to.
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Voter suppression
100% this
If people actually voted, they might vote for people the oligarchy doesn’t like. Bet you didn’t think about that, huh? Checkmate libruls!
No, I literally can’t even vote for someone the oligarchs don’t control. They don’t make it to the ballot.
What? Don’t you get like 16 hours to vote on polling day?
We have elections on Thursdays in the UK and no one claims not having the whole day off is “voter supression” because you’ve got plenty of time to vote and it only takes five minutes.
and it only takes five minutes.
Not here it doesn’t. There are constant intentional efforts to shut down polling locations in communities with a disproportionate amount of minorities. The intent is to force minority voters to travel further to get to a polling place (which may not be an option due to our joke of a public transit network), and to force them to wait in line for hours at a time to vote.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/04/upshot/voting-wait-times.html
In some jurisdictions, they’ve gone so far with their voter suppression tactics that they make it a punishable offense to provide food and water for those waiting in the hours long lines to vote.
And that’s all before accounting for the fact that many people need to have two jobs to be stable, which makes it hard to get to the polls even if the lines are short.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/8-7-million-americans-now-193011733.html
The U.S. election system is a joke, and a sham democracy.
The U.S.
election systemis a joke, and a sham democracy.FTFY
That’s fair
it only takes five minutes
Sure, if I park on the sidewalk and skip everyone waiting in line. It actually takes less than 5 minutes.
Everything about your comment is wrong. No we don’t get guaranteed time off of any kind but even if we did, the amount of time it takes varies wildly.
They are saying that you have all day to vote, not that you get 16 hours of time off.
I see. Well, still, polling centers may not be open or accessible 24/7. What people outside the US don’t get is that we have federal state and local laws so you can rarely say anything is true across the country.
Not to mention that people work long or double shifts sometimes.
But what you don’t have is stuff like a way for people to watch your kids when you’re off work so you stand in a line for 2 hours in order to vote, something kids are not known for being able to put up with easily.
And then there’s the transportation they may not have. If you have to walk an hour to get to that two hour line, that’s even more time used up.
And then there’s the fact that someone exhausted from a day of work may not have the energy to stand in line for 20 minutes, let alone 2 hours.
Voting on election day can take way more than five minutes, however, in most cases, you have weeks to vote.
Cuz America is a backwards ass country
A shit hole country
A third world country in a Prada belt.
