♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦
Topic #222
May 4th is the unofficial Star Wars Day. (May the Fourth be with you.)
What other days should be recognized as holidays but aren’t?
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I think May the 4th is a really important day, but then if you know me, you know about my obsessions. Yes, I’m a total fangirl. My daughter’s nursery is decorated with X-Wings and AT-ATs schematics. She also has an AT-AT decal on her wall a little girl walking one as a dog). My house is shelter to a lot of Star Wars memorabilia. Just can’t get enough. More to come!
But what other holiday might I view as super important, probably far more important than the amazing cultural connection 5/4 gives us?
Election Day.
It’s not an official holiday in the United States, meaning that we don’t get the day off to participate in our governance. I think that’s a tragedy. A lot of workers, the elderly, people with disabilities, students, and other groups are disenfranchised from voting because they have to navigate deterrents the rest of us do not face (time off, transportation, access).
I’d change a lot about election day. For one: paper ballots counted and audited. You could easily regulate this with encoded ballots. US post offices could deliver them to citizens, pick them up, and be drop off. People are concerned about fraud in this transaction. There are plenty of ways to deal with the process, and a lot of jobs to create around safety, thus making it a win all around.
Giving people the day off would afford those who don’t get time off from employers the entire day to get to the polls. Now, this is where we need additional clean up: we need more polling places (not less), we need a better transportation infrastructure, and we need election day as a national holiday. Good? Good.
Honestly, I can’t believe Election Day is not a national holiday, or all employers are compelled to give people time off to vote. It’s as if they have a vested interest in the average voter not having access. Maybe that’s why there are so few locations and hours long waits for the majority of voters. Look, it’s a screwed up system, and it’s getting harder to vote every year. New York, in fact, just cancelled the primary for democrats, eradicating the voices of an entire state–that’s absolutely an infringement of rights and there are nefarious reasons behind it. Thankfully, there are New Yorkers willing to sue and address this attack on our civil liberties.
As of right now, I am just hoping things work out. I feel like I don’t even recognize my country anymore. A holiday so we could vote would be a bonus.
Let’s hop on over to see what the other authors have to say. I bet this will be interesting because we have authors from other countries participating, and the things they need are sure to be different from those here in the States…
