Why Do We Vote On A Tuesday Anyway? (1845-Present)
This Day
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2024
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Happy Election Day! Today we're bringing you an episode from earlier this year about how we ended up with Tuesday as our voting day to begin with.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss why that day was designated, and the many pitfalls that now exist around the fact that Election Day is only one day, and on a Tuesday.
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Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everyone. Jody here. It is here, Election Day 2024. I am sure your head is full of all sorts of things. |
| 0:07.2 | I'm sure your ears are full of all sorts of last-minute election podcasts and analysis. |
| 0:12.0 | I do hope at some point today you get to go outside or go to the gym or play with your kids |
| 0:16.7 | and realize that in some ways it is just another Tuesday. |
| 0:21.0 | Speaking of which, I thought the best thing we could do today was bring you an episode we did earlier this year about why in the world we vote on a random Tuesday in November to begin with. |
| 0:30.9 | So here it is, take a listen. |
| 0:32.5 | And like all of you, I and the rest of the team here will be watching the returns tonight. |
| 0:36.4 | And then we're going to record a special episode to run on Thursday with our reaction to the results. |
| 0:42.7 | So, happy Election Day. |
| 0:44.1 | Thanks to all of you for listening to the show and supporting the show. |
| 0:48.1 | And happy Tuesday. |
| 0:52.7 | Hello and welcome to this day in Essel Turk political history from Radiotopia. |
| 0:56.8 | My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 1:00.6 | This day, January 25th, 1845, the 28th U.S. Congress passed, quote, |
| 1:07.4 | an act to establish a uniform time for holding elections for electors of president |
| 1:12.3 | and vice president in all the states of the union, which of course, that day, as we all know, |
| 1:18.2 | was designated as, quote, the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Sure, why not? |
| 1:23.6 | The Tuesday after the first Monday in November. And here we are. That is still to this day |
| 1:28.8 | election day. So let's talk about how we got to that. Let's ask that question, why Tuesday? |
| 1:34.1 | Here to answer, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. |
| 1:39.6 | Hello there. Hello, Jody. Hey there. There's actually a grassroots group called and a bit of a movement called Why Tuesday, |
| 1:48.7 | and it's one of these sort of voting reform groups that has been asking this question for a while |
... |
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