I understand it, I really do. Still, I wish the primary election were being held today, rather than Thursday.
In New York State, the primary is the second Tuesday in September for non-federal elections. September 11, 2001, was a Tuesday, and the voting, of course, was suspended for a week. In fact, it had not even started in upstate New York, where polling begins at noon on primary days.
The rationale for moving the voting to Thursday this year is so that folks can participate in 9/11 memorials. For me, though, nothing would be more symbolic than to be able to cast a ballot on the anniversary of that day.
Thursday, BTW, will be the fourth of five voting opportunities in the state. On April 24, there was the Presidential primary, moved up from June so that it would matter to the final outcome; it still didn’t, as all of Mitt Romney’s opponents had dropped out by then. On May 15, there was the school budget vote, held statewide for most districts. In June, there were the primaries for the federal, non-Presidential primary; that would be for the House of Representatives and the US Senate, per some federal voting law which requires a certain number of days to allow for military absentee ballots. Then September 13, and, of course, November 6.
When I was growing up, even in Presidential years, there were only two voting opportunities, in June and November. All these elections are expensive, and it’d be nice if there was some way to consolidate at least the June and September ballots.
As a secondary consideration, I hate voting on Thursdays – and I really DO need to vote, since there are competitive races – since it means I can’t vote before I go to work (the polls aren’t open yet), so I must vote when I get home, when everyone else is at the polls, then eat, take out the trash, and go back out to choir rehearsal. There is some provision in my work regulations that say that I can get up to a couple of hours off from work to vote. I’ve never actually used that in 20 years, but I’d be seriously tempted on Thursday.