How Election Day began being held on a specific day in November
WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Election Day 2024 is Tuesday, with millions of people who haven’t already early-voted set to cast their ballot.
The important day has fallen on the first Tuesday following the first Monday of November since 1845, when Congress passed a federal law marking the date.
Before 1845, states could hold the presidential election on an individually set date within a 34-day period ahead of the first Wednesday in November.
The first presidential election started on December 15, 1788, and ended almost a month later, on January 10, 1789, seeing George Washington named the nation’s first president.
The lack of a defined voting date caused problems as the years went on, however. With the invention of the telegraph, the rise of two-party competition across most states and record-breaking voter turnout, votes could be influence by results if not held on a single day.
But choosing a single date for Election Day proved to be difficult.
Most citizens worked as farmers and lived far from their polling place, having to travel a day or two to vote. Weekends were impractical for a national voting date, since most people spent Sundays in church and Wednesday was market day for farmers. With this in mind, Tuesday was selected as the first and most convenient day of the week to hold elections. Farming is also the reason behind the November date, with it coming after the busy harvest month of October and before the harsh winter months.
The first Election Day took place on November 7, 1848. Whig Party candidate Zachary Taylor won the election, becoming the 12th president of the United States.
