From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: Views on Implementing Federal Elections on a Weekend

Audio interview by GAO staff with Bill Jenkins, Director, Homeland
Security and Justice

Related GAO Work: GAO-12-69: Elections: Views on Implementing Federal
Elections on a Weekend

Released: January 2012

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[ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and
information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's January
2012. In the 2008 general election, 38 percent of eligible citizens did
not vote. To make voting more convenient, many states have provided at
least one alternative to in-person voting on Election Day, including
early voting and voting by mail. A group led by Bill Jenkins, a director
in GAO's Homeland Security and Justice team, recently reviewed the
issues involved in another proposed alternative, conducting an election
over a weekend. GAO's Jeremy Cluchey sat down with Bill to learn more.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Why are federal elections always held on Tuesday?

[ Bill Jenkins: ] Well, since 1845 federal law has required that
Election Day for federal elections--congressional, presidential
elections--be held on a Tuesday. But the reason for Tuesday is
principally reflects the agrarian society that the United States was in
1845, so you weren't gonna hold it on a Sunday, people went to church on
Sunday. They needed a day to travel to the polls 'cause sometimes they
had a distance to go, even 15 miles or something would be quite a
distance back then. And so you have Monday to travel, Tuesday to vote,
and then after that you could go back home. So it really had to do with
transportation issues.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Can you talk a little bit about some of the concerns
around voter turnout and any of the other factors that prompted this
report?

[ Bill Jenkins: ] Well, as the society has come more, consisting more of
two income households as well as a number of people that hold two jobs,
there's been the issue of whether or not people don't vote because
simply they're too busy and it's difficult to work it into their
schedule. So there's a concern that in addition to various forms of
voting other than Election Day, like early voting or absentee voting,
that if people had 2 days over the weekend to be able to vote, it'd make
it more convenient for them, easier to work it into their schedule, and
therefore voter turnout may be higher.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] In terms of holding elections on a weekend, you
spoke with state and local officials who identified some of the major
challenges that they'd anticipate facing. What were some of these
challenges?

[ Bill Jenkins: ] I think first it's important to understand the context
of voting administration in the United States. There are 10,500 election
jurisdictions in the United States. On Election Day there are literally
hundreds of thousands of polling places across the country, and so it's
an enormous logistical operation, and so their concerns are largely
logistical. First is being able to find polling places, and particularly
polling places that are in sufficient numbers to make it convenient for
people to vote and also that they're accessible to people with
disabilities. One of the concerns with voting on Saturday and Sunday is
of, is the many jurisdictions, particularly in rural areas use churches
or synagogues as a place to vote and they won't be available on one of
those days. The second issue is poll workers. Poll workers in the United
States largely are over 65, it's a 16-hour day. The question is whether
or not they'd be literally physically able to do 2 16-hour days. And the
third is the security of voting equipment. The voting equipment that you
would need to secure the ballots, you would have to do that overnight,
you might have to hire guards in order to be able to do that, to make
sure they're secure. There's also a technological issue, particularly
with electronic voting machines, is those machines are not designed to
be reprogrammed for another day. Once they're shut down, the ballots are
secure, and so there'd be an issue of, technologically for them of how
do they make these machines work over 2 days and at, while also
providing the security that they need to provide.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] This report also looks at some other voting
alternatives that states have tried to address the low voter turnout
issue. Can you talk about these alternatives and the extent to which you
found that they've affected voter turnout?

[ Bill Jenkins: ] There are basically three types of opportunities for
voters to vote. Thirty-five states and the District give voters at least
one alternative to voting on the Tuesday, and those alternatives vary
across jurisdictions but they basically are of three types. One is
voting by mail. Two states, Oregon and Washington, basically all voting
is by mail. The second is no- … what is called no-fault absentee voting,
that is, you can ask for and get an absentee ballot without having an
excuse or reason to do so. And the third is early voting where you can
go in person to a library or other place designated before Election Day
and actually vote in person and cast your vote in person. Voters do like
having options. They like the opportunity to be able to vote on days
other than Election Day. It makes it easier for them if they have child
care issues or they're sick or whatever. But the bottom line is in terms
of the effect of these options on voter turnout, it's really not clear.
The only option where it's clear it does affect voter turnout from the
studies that have been done is vote by mail does seem to increase voter
turnout.

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