Election Day as a National Holiday

Three-quarters of both Democrats and Republicans say Election Day should be a national holiday.

The case for an Election Day holiday is straightforward and appeals to common sense: An Election Day holiday would make it easier for people to vote and would symbolically reinforce the importance of voting.

But there is no national Election Day—and may never be one—for reasons more practical than partisan:

1. Most voting is no longer on Election Day. As of the 2024 election, 97% of voters had the option to vote early in-person or by mail. In that election, nearly 60% of voters cast their ballots those ways. This does not appear to be a fluke. Early voting was on the rise before the COVID-era 2020 election, and it has stayed a majority phenomenon since. It would likely take a reversal of voting laws to change the trend. Otherwise, it will be difficult to justify an Election Day if most people continue to vote before Election Day.

2. Election Day in November is not the only, and not necessarily the most important, Election Day. Especially in years without a presidential election, primary elections that occur earlier in the year are arguably more important. This is because the vast majority of congressional seats, and a large percentage of statehouse seats and governorships, are safe for one party or the other. Thus, the real competition (if there is any) is in the primary elections earlier in the year.

3. It’s not clear that an Election Day holiday would raise voter turnout. Before early voting became widespread, a 2009 Princeton study compared turnout among state employees in 13 states that had Election Day holidays versus those in other states. The study found no meaningful difference.

4. Just because it’s a holiday doesn’t mean everyone has the day off. Businesses are not required to observe federal holidays. Although most observe big holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving, retail businesses and many service businesses (for example, restaurants) often do not observe lesser holidays. This has caused some to argue that an Election Day holiday would hurt more than help because “you’ll have all the people who work in these types of jobs still having to work, being inundated with customers who have the day off and they won’t have child care because the schools will be closed.”

5. A national Election Day holiday has costs to taxpayers. With government employees off, it represents a day of lost productivity in serving the public. For government employees who must work due to critical roles, overtime pay represents actual new spending. Although it’s only a day’s worth of impact in relation to 260 working days, the costs will still add up to hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity and overtime costs. 

Partisan Dynamics

There are also partisan politics at play. In the past ten years, an Election Day holiday has been mostly associated with the Democratic Party. Democrats have assumed that making it easier to vote would lead to more Democratic votes than Republican votes. However, the 2024 election showed that low-voting demographics who previously favored the Democratic Party were shifting toward a more equal share with the Republican Party, a trend that was already underway.

So the winners-and-losers calculus from a national Election Day is getting less clear. It’s possible that this will make the idea more appealing on a bipartisan basis. In the current Congressional session, there is a House bill, The Election Day Act, sponsored by Republican Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. It has eight Democrats as co-sponsors and one Republican. Introduced in January 2025, the bill has not progressed beyond a committee assignment. Many other past attempts at Election Day bills have died in committee.

What about Expanded Early Voting?

If the goal is to enable and encourage more people to vote, is it better to forget the Election Day holiday and just expand early voting? The argument is, early voting has already become the norm because voters like it; thus, we should build on what’s working and ensure it’s available everywhere on the same terms.

From a public opinion perspective, although universal mail-in voting lacks Republican support, both Republicans and Democrats are on board with universal early in-person voting:

Expanded early voting may lack the symbolism of a holiday, but it achieves the same practical goal: making voting more accessible.

Other Alternatives

What about other ways to address the underlying goals of an Election Day holiday? Here are some ideas in circulation:

1. Paid time off for voting. For the 2024 election, 28 states required employers to provide paid time to vote, but enforcement is weak and the amount of time varies. A federal law requiring paid voting leave or flexible scheduling on Election Day (or during early-voting windows) would target the same access issue without the broader economic and administrative costs of declaring a new holiday. The Time Off to Vote Act has been floated in a few past Congresses but not gotten far.

2. Move Election Day to a weekend. Holding major elections on a Saturday or Sunday (or spanning both) rather than the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November could ease work-schedule conflicts. Many other democracies follow this model. The idea has been floated in Congress numerous times without success.

3. Declare a symbolic civic observance rather than a full paid holiday. A “National Voting Day” could be observed with civic events, public education efforts, and community mobilization, without shutting down government offices and imposing broad economic costs. The gesture would reinforce voting as a shared civic moment even if workplaces remain open.

4. Combine Election Day with Veterans Day. Some reformers propose aligning federal elections with Veterans Day (November 11), leveraging an existing federal holiday to give polls the “day off” effect without creating a new holiday from scratch. This variant offers both symbolic resonance (linking service and citizenship) and logistical simplicity.

A Civic Holiday or Civic Habits?

Calls to make Election Day a national holiday reflect a healthy instinct: to treat voting as a shared act of citizenship rather than an errand to squeeze between shifts. But as voting habits and laws have evolved, the practical need for a single national holiday is fading.

What remains is the symbolic need to reaffirm that self-government depends on participation. Whether through expanded early voting, guaranteed time off, weekend elections, or a civic observance like “National Voting Day,” the point is not the day itself but the culture around it.