Democrats seek election holiday (Dean & Edwards making news)

Democrats seek election holiday

Conference hopes to increase turnout
June 3, 2005

BY STEWART M. POWELL
HEARST NEWSPAPERS


WASHINGTON -- Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean called Thursday for presidential election days to be designated national holidays or be moved to a weekend -- steps he said would boost voter participation.


Dean, joined by prospective 2008 presidential candidate John Edwards, urged changes in the nation's presidential election system in remarks to an audience of progressive activists at a "Take Back America" conference sponsored by the liberal Campaign for America's Future.


Dean, a physician and former five-term governor of Vermont, called for Congress either to make the first Tuesday of November a federal holiday in presidential election years or move Election Day from a workday to a weekend day to make it easier for voters to cast ballots.


Edwards called for broad election overhaul to increase voter participation, without calling specifically for a national holiday.


"While we're working on democracy over there" in Iraq, "we've got more work to do on democracy right here,' " said Edwards. The former one-term senator from North Carolina ran as the Democrats' vice presidential candidate last November.

More: http://www.freep.com/news/nw/holiday3e_20050603.htm


Also, see John Edward's speech here: http://www.dembloggers.com/main/2

The end of the speech on part 2 is where Edwards made these remarks.

then more people would vote - not have to get out of an absurdly long line to get to work on time.

here in Orange County, Florida we have early voting for two weeks prior to the election. We had almost 20% of the registered voters vote this way. No folks this is not the part of Florida that screwed up the 2000 election--we have optiscan machines!

Unfortunately, no matter how easy it is or how much time off, how many more people do you think are going to vote? I have voted since I was 18 by abstentee which is very easy to in Florida--why don't more people vote this way is beyond me. No lines! You can vote in your pajamas for crying' out loud!

Or do you get the feeling Edwards suspects we won? (saw him on C-Span)

Anyway-it feels good to not be alone in our mad "conspiracy."

For pure sadness sake-check the 2004 election results archives-someone posted a few months ago that-guess who-Kerry proposed a national holiday in...2001.

Oh-and we aren't the miniority of anything. Talk about defeatism indeed. I don't buy anything they told me about this election-values voters crap on down. We have work to do but without fixing the voting process-who cares how many we bring into the tent?

We must have verified voting. And how is Andy doing anyway?

And have been for quite a while.

Germans vote on the weekends. It usually only takes a few minutes too with little or no lines.

It has been needed for such a long time. Wouldn't it be great if every major election day were a holiday? :party:

Not only does election day need to be a holiday, it might need to require more than one day!