In
an interview published Thursday, President Obama endorsed the idea of holding U.S. federal elections on weekends or national holidays. Right now, federal elections are always held on Tuesdays, because farmers in the 1840s
needed multiple days to get to the polls in their buggies.
Though Obama has
floated the idea of mandatory voting in the past, it doesn’t appear he’s ever explicitly supported changing the day elections are held.
What’s more, Obama endorsed the idea in an interview with a college student. Dan Corey, the editor-in-chief of Rutgers University’s The Daily Targum, was
granted a 15-minute interview with the president after asking during a visit to the White House in April.
Still, Obama did not indicate that his new-found support for changing Election Day would actually translate into action. If he did, that’d certainly make many progressives happy — in fact, a coalition of progressive groups
launched a campaign last year urging Obama to make Election Day a federal holiday. While it would require an act of Congress to make Election Day a national holiday for all Americans, Obama could issue an executive order that would give a paid day off to federal workers.
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