Five years have passed since the Pew Research Center found roughly two-thirds of Americans favored making Election Day a holiday, according to an October 2018 report.
Though it’s not a national holiday, there are several states that observe Election Day as a holiday, including Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Montana.
Texas isn’t one of those states.
In May, Denton City Council member Brandon Chase McGee pitched the idea for a work session to discuss the possibility of making Election Day a municipal holiday in Denton. He said he believed it could make Denton the first city in Texas to do so.
It received majority support for a discussion.
“It’s not just about democracy,” McGee said at the May 16 council work session. “It’s to have the opportunity to lead this state here and do something that we all feel strongly about and send a message to our employees that here’s an opportunity to vote.”
A couple of council members did support McGee’s idea, but it didn’t receive a majority council direction.
Council members Brian Beck and Paul Meltzer were the only ones in favor of the idea.
“Just because you’re the first to do it doesn’t mean it is the right thing to do,” council member Chris Watts said.
Watts said council members’ lack of support for the measure doesn’t mean they undervalue city employees’ right to vote.
“The city of Denton does value its employees,” he added.
Watts then reiterated that the council has made early voting locations more accessible for the community. There are quite a few of them available, according to the finalized list by the Denton County Elections Administration.
Early voting takes place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, Oct. 23 through Oct. 28; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 29; and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, Oct. 30 to Nov. 3.
Those early voting locations are as follows:
- Denton Civic Center 321 E. McKinney St., Community Room
- Denton County Elections Administration 701 Kimberly Drive, A111
- Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center 1300 Wilson St., Meeting Room B
- North Branch Library 3020 N. Locust St., Meeting Room
- Robson Ranch Creative Arts and Technology Center 9404 Ed Robson Blvd., Library
- South Branch Library 3228 Teasley Lane, Program Room
- University of North Texas — Gateway Center 801 North Texas Blvd., Room 52
Election Day occurs from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 7. Locations for the local precincts include:
- Serve Denton Center, 306 N. Loop 288, Ste. 100 in the conference room — Precinct 1056
- North Branch Library, 3020 N. Locust St. in the meeting room — Precinct 1057
- North Lakes Recreation Center 2001 W. Windsor Drive in Multipurpose Room A — Precincts 1058, 1059, 1060
- North Branch Library 3020 N. Locust St. in the meeting room — Precincts 1061, 1062, 1063, 1064
- Serve Denton Center 306 N. Loop 288, Ste. 100 in the conference room — Precincts 1065, 1066
- Denton ISD Sisk Service Center 230 N. Mayhill Road in the Assembly Room — Precinct 2067, 2068, 2069, 2070
In the Sept. 19 city presentation, city staffers listed the thirteen holidays municipal employees already receive. They pointed out that none of the 136 cities they surveyed offered an Election Day holiday and quoted the city’s policy for voting, which allows employees “short-term paid leaves of absence when work scheduling would prohibit participation as a voter in national, state, county, district, and municipal elections” and states that approval for absence will be “based on the workload of the department and whether or not the employee’s work schedule prohibits voter participation”
City staffers also mentioned that there have been no reported complaints regarding employees’ request to vote.
If council decided to offer it, city staff claimed that it would cost $519,287 and estimated the average additional overtime cost due to the holiday in the $250,000 price range, according to the Sept. 19 presentation.
McGee’s request comes at a time when there have been talks by national leaders to make Election Day a federal holiday.
There’s a good reason to do so, according to a 2021 report by the Brookings Institute.
In the report, experts William G. Gale and Darrell M. West pointed out that many other democracies make election day a holiday and have higher voter turnout than the U.S. The institute cited several examples, such as Australia, where turnout is in the 90% range, as well as Mexico, where the high turnout occurs because they have universal voting and time off for it.
“Making Election Day a holiday would not necessarily involve adding a new holiday, which employers might resist — particularly following the addition of Juneteenth as a national holiday last week,” Gale and West wrote. “Instead, lawmakers could simply move nearby Veterans’ Day to Election Day, emphasizing that voting is both a service to the country and a celebration of the rights and freedoms for which our service members fight.”
At the Sept. 19 work session, an employer resisting it was on display for the public.
McGee called it a question of values. “What do each of us value for our employees?” McGee asked. “Do we think voting is important or not?”
Doing so, McGee said, would have also been a good recruiting tool for the city. It would show that the council is being proactive instead of reactive, he said.
“I’m just disappointed in us,” McGee said. “Nobody else in the state has done this. Today, we could have been great.”