Why Do We Have Election Days?

Americans have become notorious for not voting in great numbers. Now, I'd like for everyone to vote, too, but some of the stuff we've done is pure nonsense, in my opinion, and it calls results into question. First, why we vote on Tuesdays is beyond me. I've never researched it, but why anyone picked that day of the week I'm not sure. A couple of centuries ago, the vast bulk of the American population was involved in agriculture. Now, farming during some parts of the year was a seven day a week job, so maybe picking Tuesday was just as good as any other day, and with most elections held in November, most farming and harvesting was done by that time of year, so any day of the week was fine.

Later, as more and more Americans took jobs in some sort of manufacturing or affiliated industries, weekdays were almost always workdays. Gradually, participation in elections dwindled, although I'm not trying to suggest that was the only for the decline. I guess it was in the 1970s that a movement developed to hold elections on either Saturdays or Sundays, or both. Well that idea terrified the upper income folks who feared that more working class people would vote on weekends, than on Tuesdays. I recall one of the arguments against two day elections being the cost. No one ever said democracy was cheap, but at times we sure try to skimp on our elections. Of course, the huge sums donated to the candidates by various interests, including labor, while seemingly deplored by many, just goes on and on. Anyway, I like the idea of two day/weekend elections, and yes, it WILL cost more. And yes, more people work on weekends than back in the 1970s, but weekdays are still the typical workdays for the majority of folks.

Now, while I'm open to persuasion, I do NOT like this early voting in many states. Some have said that it helps alieviate the hassle of election day voting, and I do not doubt that, but at what price? If Joe Schmo is running for dogcatcher and lots of people vote early for him; then a story breaks near the election that old Joe was involved in some scandal, you can't get those votes back. To me, this entire enterprise in trying to build up election numbers like this is NOT good. Further, how does anyone know the people sending in ballots or voting online are really the people who are registered to vote, or that even the actual voters haven't been "persuaded" by someone to vote a particular way? This all is deeply disturbing for the validity of elections in my opinion. So why do we have election days?