The problem is trying to fit voting in on a workday. The solution is to move Veterans Day to Election Day. Welcome to Puzzle Drop Monday. The short month of November is jam-packed with holidays, Veterans Day, the long Thanksgiving weekend, and already in some States—Election Day. Here starts the week’s flight of seven articles on…
This Week’s
Political Flap
Should Veterans Day Move to Election Day?
Veterans Day, originally Armistice Day, was to celebrate the end of the First World War, which happened at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. The last soldier to have served in that war has now passed.
Why not move Election Day to Veterans Day? That would mean that some years voting would be on the Sabbath, whatever day of the week that falls on, which disrespects that religion. Voting could also be on the weekend, which is when most people are trying to enjoy family time. However, moving Veterans Day to Election Day has no such baggage.
The idea of combining Veterans Day with Election Day centers on encouraging greater voter turnout while paying tribute to those who have served. It taps into a shared sense of national duty, potentially transforming the day into a powerful collective moment of action and remembrance.
Polls show voting on Veteran’s Day to have majority support from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, but Veterans Day can land on any day of the week, including Sunday.
If Veterans Day was moved to Election Day, then voting would remain on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November and would become a national holiday—celebrations and voting during the day and mostly happy returns in the evening.
ONE PARROT SALUTES to everyone voting on everything; the majority should always rule.
This change can make it easier for people to vote because they have the day off. It celebrates democracy in a practical way, potentially getting more voices heard in the election process, which is a win for the democratic principle of participation.
THE OTHER PARROT DRAFTS that elected officials and the judiciary should decide when it’s correct to impose the will of the majority or the minority on others—voting is just part of the process.
There’s concern that simply increasing numbers at the polls doesn’t mean voters are informed. While Democrats might welcome a larger, more diverse electorate, Republicans might worry about shifts in voting patterns. Additionally, a surge of less informed voters could challenge overall decision-making quality, affecting both parties.
What score will our nonpartisan rating system give, moving Veterans Day to Election Day? Stay tuned this week to find out.
Expanded
Key ‘YES’
Reasons
In-Favor
of Moving Veterans Day to Election Day
• Honors Veterans with patriotic elections (1) because it links their service to the democratic freedoms they defended.
• Flag waving helps Republicans (3) because it resonates with their often strong nationalistic sentiments.
• Voting on a holiday helps Democrats (5) because it potentially increases turnout among groups that advocate for change.
• Holidays make it easier for all people to vote (7) because they typically don’t have work obligations.
• The right to vote or not is sacrosanct (9) because it’s the foundation of democratic governance.
• Increased voting spotlights other voting tech (11) because plurality voting or first-past-the-post is widely regarded as seriously flawed.
• Will tone down some rhetoric out of respect (13) because the solemnity of Veterans Day can temper political passions.
• Prevents yet another national holiday for voting (15) because it consolidates significant observances, respecting both time and tradition.
EVEN MORE ‘YES’ REASONS
• Veterans also make great poll workers (17) because they are often disciplined, organized, and community-oriented.
• Increased voting may speed climate action (19) because a larger, more diverse voter base can shift policy priorities.
• A reliable midweek day off (21) because it ensures that people have a consistent schedule to engage in voting.
• Getting child care is easier on holidays (23) because more services and family help are typically available.
• Polls have a majority of both parties in favor (25) because bipartisan support implies a collective understanding of the benefits.
• Armed forces protect all Americans (27) because, at the end of the day, both parties want Veterans’ votes.
• Reminds us of our founder’s sacrifice (29) because it draws a direct line from the Revolution to current civic duties.
• It protects sabbaths from possible weekend voting (31) because it respects religious observances by keeping elections on a weekday.
Expanded
Key ‘NO’
Reasons Against
Moving Veterans Day to Election Day
- Dishonors veterans with distracting elections (2) because it risks overshadowing the solemn purpose of Veterans Day, transforming a day of remembrance into one of political contention.
- One less holiday for some (4) because some States already have an Election Day holiday, and sometimes Veterans Day can make a long holiday weekend.
- Politics puts off many veterans (6) because the partisan nature of elections may detract from the inclusive, unifying intent of Veterans Day.
- People should make time to vote (8) because voting is a fundamental civic duty that should be integrated into regular schedules rather than relying on a specific holiday.
- One honors the past, the other the future (10) because merging Veterans Day with Election Day conflates two distinct purposes – remembrance of past sacrifices with decisions about future governance.
- Polls will be even more crowded (12) because combining a national holiday with election day could lead to overwhelming turnout at polling stations, causing logistical challenges and longer wait times.
- Most people don’t understand the issues (14) because an increased focus on Veterans Day could lead to less informed voting, as the day’s significance might overshadow the importance of understanding electoral choices.
- Controversy breeds profits (16) because politicizing Veterans Day and Election Day creates commercial opportunities for some.
EVEN MORE ‘NO’ REASONS - It’s harder for holiday workers to get to the polls (18) because those required to work on holidays may find it even more difficult to vote, contrary to the goal of making voting more accessible.
- Only 9 States have an Election Day holiday (20) because it’s not a big deal.
- Less PTO for Federal employees to vote (22) because combining the holiday with election day could reduce the amount of paid time off.
- Manipulates voters to support hawks (24) because associating Veterans Day with elections might inadvertently influence voters to favor more militaristic policies or candidates.
- People can use mail-in ballots (26) because the availability of mail-in voting negates the need to designate a holiday for in-person voting, maintaining the sanctity of Veterans Day.
- Increased voter turnout is bad for the business (28) because higher participation in elections could lead to policy changes that adversely affect certain business interests.
- Veterans Day tradition is 11/11 (30) because the Armistice was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
- Voter fraud might go up (32) because a national holiday might increase the chaos at the polls, creating opportunities to undermine voting laws.
PolicyKeys
Four Ways
Here’s the PLAN: For you People-people, you can enjoy real-life political role-playing at PolicyKeys.com. Sit awhile in each role’s chair and decide whether a majority of people in that role would be for or against the solution. Empathy is power. In the classroom, PolicyKeys is a team sport.
For you Letter-people, we publish daily on this Super Nonpartisan Public Policy Blog. It’s like a color commentary on the big game. Or a juicy menu to order up your favorite solutions. You can check out the US Public Policy Leaderboard (US-PPL) and the sweet sixteen updates every SuperMajority Sunday.
For you Abstract-people, we’ve invented a nonpartisan scoring system to include 128 roles, four laws of public policy formation, two levels of pattern-seeking AI, forecasting science, and a treasure hunt for the highest-rated solution to every public policy puzzle. We’re open to public and/or private sector solutions. Are you?
And, four, you Numbers-people, all our solutions add up in the POL-ICYMI Key for each week’s puzzle. What stats are to baseball, PolicyKeys is to Public Policy. We publish a new policy solution BOX Score every Friday.
Last Week’s
Political Flap
Flight of Articles
Should Standard Time Become Permanent?
Sunset (End) Daylight Savings Time
Puzzle Drop Introduction
MONDAY
Feeling Jet Lagged? How About Sunsetting (Ending) DST?
Tiebreaker
TUESDAY
If We Could Turn Back Time (and End DST)
Politically Strange Bedfellows
WEDNESDAY
Which Odd Couples Are Rising When the Sun Doesn’t Shine?
Political Digital Twin
THURSDAY
Lean on Your Political Digital Twin Before Political Parrots
BOX Score
FRIDAY
Nonpartisan Scores for Standard Time v Daylight Savings Time
Keynote
SATURDAY
We Weighed Standard Time Against Daylight Savings Time, Which Was Lighter?
US Public Policy Leaderboard Update
SUNDAY
SuperMajority Sunday: Standard Time & the US Public Policy Leaderboard #46
Cue the
Patriotic Music
Imagine an America not paralyzed by political squawking. A Parrot-otopia oasis in a desert of division. Where the sounds of the silent supermajority drown out the droning of the hyper-partisan parrots.
We’ll be freed from the cages of entrenched ideology to fly higher in the big sky of American beliefs, attitudes, values, and ethics. To boldly go where no political parrot has gone before—rating solutions with a nonpartisan score.
Anthem
Where Can We Agree?
(Why Don’t You Want To Know?)
Methodology
Politics 1.0 is each party wanting to be a one-party system. Politics 2.0 is the two-party gridlock that blocks the silent supermajority from getting what they need. Politics 3.0 is all the noise from special interest groups trying to influence us to see things their way. Politics 4.0 is to rank solutions with a nonpartisan score and let the best ideas rise up the leaderboard so ‘us people’ can choose.
Our One-Page Narrative Tool, game board, and AI are based on a ground truth:
There’s a time to save
and a time to spend,
a time for freedom
and a time for laws.
Where can we agree?
This yields four legs of the political table: Abundance, Thrift, Governance, and Commerce, poetically our Political DNA, ACGT.
A Level
Playing Field
The four sides of the table are…
Abundance Governance (AG)
National Public Sector and NGOs,
Abundance Commerce (AC)
Technology and New Businesses,
Thrift Government (TG)
Local Municipalities, Guilds, and Consumers, and
Thrift Commerce (TC)
Established Supply Chains and Jobs.
Each side has a bias for change and a bias for the status quo. We scan these eight Information Walls for Key YES and NO Reasons, no cherry-picking.
Treasure Hunt
We search for solutions with the highest hypothetical nonpartisan rating. Something that would solve 80% of the problem with the simplest 20% solution. The Pareto principle, hence a parrot-topia.
The Political Parrots have a Key reason they don’t want us to know about because it ruins their argument. We search for these, like a treasure hunt, and sort them using our EMIT format: Emotions, Money, Information, and Timespan. We listen for these key signals in the political noise.
Key Reasons can look similar, so we edit for redundancy and look for errors, omissions, and innovations.
Political Parrots say the same thing over and over and over again. We look to filter out the GRIFTERS, Gaslighting, Red-herrings, Idolizing, False-dilemmas, Tunnel-vision, Exclusions, Reductions, and Straw-man arguments.
Birds of a Feather AI
Once the Key Reasons are set, we prescore the puzzle using the Birds of a Feather AI for loose ties to beliefs, attitudes, values, and ethics. Over 16 million combinations are possible for the 128 roles. The game board starts balanced at zero, with an equal bias for change and the status quo.
We then prescore the puzzle using 56 arch-type roles that best embody each of the 56 loose ties. This yields a general bias for change or status quo and reveals ties.
The editors review all 128 roles for specific reasons and overrule the general AI where necessary. These are noted in the Tuesday Tiebreaker article.
Then, we score the puzzle on all four sides of the Political Table: eight Information Walls, sixteen Subcultural Windows, sixteen Bias Columns, and sixteen Influence Rows.
SAT9 AI
‘When the scoring is done, a second AI looks for inconsistencies using the SAT9 AI filter (Situational Assessment Tool). This is 256 ‘supreme courts’ where each role is the chief justice in a presumed 5-4 and 4-5 bench. This generates a ± error margin.
The engine for the AI is our One Page Narrative Tool (OPNT) which we gamified for role-playing at policykeys.com. We call our AI, POLI for Political Omnibus Leadership Initiative.
You can read more about PolicyKeys™ in the upcoming book, Politics 4.0: How Gamification, AI, and National Idea Leaderboards Can Help You Depolarize the World. The Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has recognized PolicyKeys™ for digital engagement.
Weekly
Puzzle
A new PolicyKeys™
Where Can We Agree?® puzzle
drops every
Monday at 7 a.m. Eastern at PolicyKeys.com.
PolicyKeys™ Where Can We Agree? is a real-life role-playing game. Each week, there are sixteen sets of eight ‘rival’ roles. Sit awhile in each of their eight chairs and predict whether a majority of people in those roles would say Yes or No to the week’s question.
The best ideas land on the US Public Policy Leaderboard (US-PPL) if a majority of each of the four sides of the political table agree.
YOU CAN PLAY THIS WEEK’S PUZZLE AT POLICYKEYS.COM.
Fly
Higher
Empower Voters 2.2
American Academy of Arts and Science
Armistice Day (Veteran’s Day)
Wikipedia
Combine Election Day with Veterans Day and give democracy a boost
CNN: Opinion
Move Voting Day to Veterans Day
Politico
OPM Announced Paid Time Off for Federal Employees to Vote
OPM
The Changing Face of America’s Veteran Population
Pew
Last U.S. World War I Vet, Dies at 110
History.com
Make Election Day a National Holiday
Brookings
Bipartisan Bill to Make Election Day a National Holiday
Press Release
Should Election Day Become a National Holiday
ProCon.org
Nineteen States Have A Holiday for Election Day
Represent.us
The Effect of Making Election Day a Holiday: A Study
Bringham Young University
Five Reasons Election Day Should Be a National Holiday
Global Citizen
Views of Election Policy Proposals
Pew
Election Day Should Not Be a National Holiday
Inc
ABA survey finds support for election holiday, expanded polling hours, voter IDs
American Bar Association
Why Tech Companies are Making Election Day a Holiday
Tech Crunch
Election Law
Cato
It takes guts to see things from all four sides of the political table.
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