Alicia Michele Benjamin: Election Day Should Be a Federal Holiday
By Alicia Michele Benjamin
Our right to vote shouldn’t depend on whether or not we can take a day off from work. Making Election Day a federal holiday is a change we need to make as a country to ensure that our democracy is fair for all of us.
Election Day falls on Tuesday, right in the middle of the workweek. People are busy. For many hourly workers — people who juggle multiple jobs, often without paid time off, who have to also handle family and household responsibilities — voting can be a burden. Making Election Day a federal holiday would give millions of people a chance to practice their civic duty as Americans.
Voting access is not equal across racial and ethnic groups. In the 2022 midterm elections, about 58% of eligible white voters cast ballots, compared to just 45% of Black voters, 40% of Asian voters and 38% of Latino voters, according to a December 2025 LegalClarity report. These gaps reflect evident differences in access, resources and opportunity.
There are major disparities even in presidential election years. A 2022 Economic Policy Institute study found that turnout in 2020 was approximately 71% for white voters, compared to 63% for Black voters, 54% for Latino voters and 60% for Asian voters. The Native American Rights Fund reported that Native American turnout that year was at 48% and had white voters at 72%.
These gaps don’t exist because of a lack of interest. They exist because of obstacles.
For many marginalized groups, voting is harder than it should be. Black voters, for example, often have to wait in longer lines at polling places. A 2019 arXivLabs report found they waited about 29% longer than voters in mostly white neighborhoods Other roadblocks include strict ID rules, fewer polling places and limited early voting options.
Native American voters face special challenges, including long distances to polling places, lack of traditional street addresses and limited early voting options in tribal areas.
Latino and Asian voters frequently face language barriers, lack of access to local representatives and advocates, and lower voter registration rates. In 2022, only 58% of Latino citizens and 62% of Asian citizens were registered, compared to over 70% of white citizens. If you’re not registered, you can’t vote — and registration itself can be confusing and takes time.
All of this is why we need a federal holiday to increase the likelihood of more citizens having a say in our political process.
If Election Day existed as a holiday, people would have more flexibility and time to stand in line, travel to polling places or help family members vote. Community organizations would have more time and volunteers available to coordinate rides and get more people to the polls.
Sure, critics of this proposal might say that a holiday set aside for voting wouldn’t help everyone equally. They might argue that some people would still have to work. That’s true. A federal holiday might not change things completely, but it would at least try to address one of the most common barriers to voting: a lack of time.
People with higher incomes and flexible schedules have more time to vote. A 2023 Pew Research Center study says this explains why white voters, who on average earn more than those in marginalized communities and typically have more flexible work schedules, vote at a higher rate. An Election Day holiday would come closer to making the process fairer.
Democracy works best when as many people as possible participate in it. But even though Black people, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans make up a large portion of the voting population (37% of eligible voters in the 2020 U.S. presidential election), many of them don’t get to make their voices heard.
As Americans, if we believe every vote matters equally, then we should care about making voting easy for everyone.
Making Election Day a federal holiday won’t totally fix the problem. It won’t stop all the unfair rules or long lines. But it can help give everyone a better chance at having access to the ballot box.
Alicia Michele Benjamin is a freelance writer and editor in Charlotte, North Carolina. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland at College Park. Last year, she directed and produced her first short documentary film, “Dreams Float Around Us.”
