Lawmakers in California have introduced a bill into the State Assembly aimed at increasing voter turnout by making Election Day a paid holiday, according to local reports Friday. Private businesses would not be required to halt operations, but the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Evan Low, said he hoped that employers give their workers the day off.
“I think this will ensure that more people will be able to participate in the electoral process,” Low, a Democrat, told the Los Angeles Times Thursday. He cited how members of low-income communities struggled to vote in person since they couldn’t risk losing income by taking time off work.
Seventy-five percent of registered voters and 58.7 percent of California residents eligible to vote did so in November’s presidential election, according to data provided by the California Secretary of State’s office. Only 42 percent of registered voters participated in the state’s 2014 general election. Nationwide, the total turnout for the 2014 elections was 36.6 percent, according to the United States Elections Project at the University of Florida.
Efforts to create a federal holiday on Election Day have been supported by Democratic leaders, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said it would help more low-income voters cast ballots. California law already allows citizens to take up to two hours off of work on Election Day to vote without losing any pay.
“We should not be satisfied with a `democracy’ in which more than 60 percent of our people don’t vote and some 80 percent of young people and low-income Americans fail to vote,” Sanders said in a statement regarding the “Democracy Day” bill introduced into the U.S. Senate, which did not pass.
If Low’s Assembly Bill 674 passes, California would join New Jersey and the commonwealth of Puerto Rico in making Election Day a holiday.
The majority of Californians voted in the November presidential election without having to step into a voting booth, with roughly 57 percent of the electorate, or 8.4 million people, casting their ballots by mail.
President Donald Trump won the election after receiving 306 electoral college votes, but he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by roughly 2.9 million votes. Trump has baselessly claimed this was the result of millions of votes being cast illegally in states like California.
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