Pothole Prairie by Tim Engstrom

Finally, Election Day is here. There remains one overarching question for people going to the polls today. Why in the world did the Founding Fathers select the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November for elections?

They didn’t.

The Constitution, ratified in 1788, didn’t set dates for the election process. Federal laws did that in later years. It wasn’t until 1845 that Congress set a uniform date “for holding elections for electors of president and vice president in all the States of the Union.”

That law was passed because results would be known in some states before others and could sway elections. Today, things are so much faster that we worry whether results from East Coast states will sway voters in West Coast states.

“Electors” in that law is a reference to the Electoral College set up in Article 2, Section 1, and in the 12th Amendment of the Constitution. But people didn’t actually vote for electors. Like today, they voted for the presidential candidates and then the electors cast ballots based one way or another or sometimes not at all (that’s another column right there) on the votes of the people in their respective states.

Being the first Tuesday after the first Monday meant that federal elections would take place nationwide between Nov. 2 and 8.

Before 1845, states held their own elections at any time in a 34-day period before the first Wednesday in December to give time for the electors — back then appointed by state legislatures — to cast their votes for president and vice president.

The 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804 in the wake of the confusing election of 1800, mentioned no date for the general election or for the date the electors cast their votes. I probably need a constitutional law professor just to wade through all the early history of American elections to figure out all of this.

OK, so what were they thinking in 1845? Why November?

This is what the Federal Elections Commission has to say:

“For much of our history, America was a predominantly agrarian society. Lawmakers therefore took into account that November was perhaps the most convenient month for farmers and rural workers to be able to travel to the polls. The fall harvest was over, (remember that spring was planting time and summer was taken up with working the fields and tending the crops) but in the majority of the nation the weather was still mild enough to permit travel over unimproved roads.

“Why Tuesday? Since most residents of rural America had to travel a significant distance to the county seat in order to vote, Monday was not considered reasonable since many people would need to begin travel on Sunday. This would, of course, have conflicted with church services and Sunday worship.

“Why the first Tuesday after the first Monday? Lawmakers wanted to prevent Election Day from falling on the first of November for two reasons. First, Nov. 1 is All Saints Day, a Holy Day of Obligation for Roman Catholics. Second, most merchants were in the habit of doing their books from the preceding month on the 1st. Apparently, Congress was worried that the economic success or failure of the previous month might prove an undue influence on the vote!”

Very cool. We had to ride our horse and buggy to the county seat.

Still, presidential elections are every four years. What about the other years? There is no presidential candidate on the ballot today. Why are we holding it on the same schedule?

In 1872, the Apportionment Act established the election of members of the U.S. House of Representatives to fall on the same date on the calendar that was used for presidential elections. (Senators, as you recall, were appointed by state legislatures until 1913.) The 1872 law made the second Tuesday after the first Monday the key election date every two years, not just four, for all states. Of course, because state and local governments already were holding elections, it became convenient to hold state and local elections on the same date.

Isn’t it fun being the world’s oldest democracy? It is interesting to discover how the Founding Fathers were pretty much taking a shot in the dark for how to do this ancient concept and left the details such as dates and means to the subsequent elected leaders. And it’s not like they just figured out a voting procedure the following year. It took decades upon decades to establish practices.

I like that we vote on a Tuesday. Some folks have proposed voting on a weekend. Who wants to be thinking about politics on a weekend? Besides, we have 169 years of established practice with “first Tuesday after the first Monday.” It’s American. If anything, I’d favor getting rid of purposeless Columbus Day and making Election Day a federal holiday.

 

Editor Tim Engstrom’s column appears every Tuesday.