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Ever wonder why we vote on Tuesday? According to the website, WhyTuesday.org,

We vote on Tuesday because of an 1845 federal law that was passed when 80% of Americans lived on farms. At the time it could often take a day or longer to get to the polls, and Congress did not want this travel to conflict with days of religious observance, which left Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday was market day. So: Tuesday.

WhyTuesday.org is also an advocacy site for election reform, not unlike electionline.org, a project of the Pew Center on the States. Electionline.org was set up as the "nation's only nonpartisan, non-advocacy website providing up-to-the-minute news and analysis on election reform":

Established by Pew after the November 2000 vote, electionline has become the leading source for journalists, policymakers, election officials, academics and concerned citizens to learn about, discuss and debate election administration issues.

On a related matter, a statistic cited in The Working Poor, 70% of those who make over $100,000 actually vote while only 30% of those making less than $30,000 actually vote. If those who make under $30K voted at the same rate as those who make over $100K, we'd have 6 million additional voters every cycle. 6 million!

It's pretty obvious that those who have to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet don't have the time to vote. In fact, when we were canvassing during the midterm elections in 2006, it was clear that most of the houses we knocked on to get the vote out were empty because everyone was at work. It's just ludicrous that our election days are not national holidays. Perhaps the powers that be really want to keep the turnout low. From WhyTuesday.org:

America ranks 139th out of 172 countries around the globe in voter turnout. That's in the bottom 20% of all countries!

Pretty outrageous, indeed...

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