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Election day, finally...but why Tuesday?
By Johannes Brann
It may seem obvious but it's true: every election is determined by the people who vote. And judging by the number of absentee ballots in Vernon County, turnout at the 16 polling locations across the county will be heavy today.
At 5 p.m. on Monday, Mike Buehler, Vernon County clerk and chief election official reported a total of 895 absentee ballots had been voted with more to be received by mail, up through noon today.
A separate team of poll workers just handles absentee ballots.
The signature on the envelope containing the ballot is compared with the signature on their application for the absentee ballot and with the signature on their voter registration card. If those signatures match, the envelope is opened and the ballot inside is taken and run through a counting machine.
"It'll take almost the entire day for the absentee ballot team to process what will likely be 1,000 ballots," said Buehler. "I don't think that's a record but it is pretty high which confirms my prediction that tomorrow, turn out in Vernon County will hit about 50 percent."
But why do we vote in November and on a Tuesday?
Today's election is the 58th quadrennial presidential election we have held in our republic. It was not until 1845 when Congress established the definition of "the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November."
For federal offices -- president, vice-president and members of congress -- this general election day occurs only in even numbered years. Presidential elections are held every four years, in years whose number is divisible by four. General elections in which presidential candidates are not on the ballot are referred to as midterm elections and between those are the "off-year" elections.
There were not federal laws regulating the first presidential election in 1788. In 1792, federal law permitted each state to choose an election date -- choosing the electors -- at any time in a 34-day period before the first Wednesday of December. That date in December was when federal law stated the electors of the U.S. president and vice-president were to meet and cast their ballots in the capitals of their respective states.
An election date in November was seen as convenient because the harvest would have been completed -- important in an agrarian society -- and the winter-like storms would not yet have begun in earnest, which was important in days before paved roads and snowplows.
While this gave each state some flexibility, it was quickly noticed the states voted later could be influenced by the earlier voting states, a problem which only grew worse when the telegraph improved communications. Just as states out west sometimes see voter turnout influenced by returns from the east, so those states which voted last would see heavy or light last minute campaigning, depending on the returns in the earlier states.
The 1844 election between James Polk and Henry Clay resulted in a popular vote difference of less than 40,000. It was thought by many that due to the differing election dates among states, the later ones were influenced by the earlier ones. A uniform date for choosing presidential electors was instituted by the U.S. Congress the very next year.
The bill initially defined the day as "the first Tuesday in November," in years divisible by four (1848, 1852, etc.). However, in some years, the period between that first Tuesday in November and the first Wednesday in December (when electors were to vote in their state capitols) would be more than 34 days and so violated existing electoral college law.
Thus, the bill was reworded to move the date for choosing presidential electors to the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, a date scheme already used in New York. The period between Election Day and the first Wednesday in December is always 29 days. The effect of the change was to make the possible range of election dates Nov. 2--8.
But why a Tuesday in November? The answer stems from the agrarian makeup of 19th-century America. In the 1800s, most citizens worked as farmers and lived far from their polling place. While we are used to multiple polling places scattered across the county, for most counties in the 1800s, the only polling place was at the county courthouse.
Since such trips were literally horse powered over bad roads, lawmakers thought it best to allow a two-day window for Election Day. Weekends were impractical, since most people spent Sundays in church, and, for many farmers, Wednesday was market day.
Tuesday was selected as the first and most convenient day of the week to hold elections. Farm culture also explains why Election Day always falls in November.
Spring and early summer elections were thought to interfere with the planting season, and late summer and early fall elections overlapped with the harvest. That left the late fall month of November -- after the harvest was complete, but before the arrival of harsh winter weather -- as the best choice.
This is the 58th quadrennial election and only the seventh one held on Nov. 8.
"The political campaign which ends on the eighth of November, decides the most important question in history. It has always been the fate of republics to be destroyed by faction. That fear is now about to be confirmed or dissipated forever," said an editorial in Harper's Weekly.
The editor was referring to the first presidential election ever held on Nov. 8, which was in 1864, between Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln -- running for re-election -- and Democratic challenger, General George McClellan.
Nov. 8 was also the date, when, in 1892, William McKinley defeated William Jennings Bryan; Teddy Roosevelt overcame Alton Parker in 1904; Franklin Roosevelt, in 1932, defeated Herbert Hoover; 1960 saw John Kennedy squeak past Richard Nixon in our nation's closest election, George Hebert Walker Bush handily defeated Michael Dukakis in 1988; and today, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton square off against one another.
It is said, "George Washington was the only president who did not blame the previous president for his troubles." True, he had no previous president -- other than the eight "presidents" of Congress under the Articles of Confederation -- but there was a king to blame -- another George -- and he served nicely.
And finally, some words from a third man named George -- drama critic and magazine editor -- George Jean Nathan, who said, "Bad officials are the ones elected by good citizens who do not vote."
The polls close at 7 p.m. this evening. For information, call the clerk's office at 448-2500. Vote and check the Wednesday paper for the results.