Samhain Fallowturn Moon
Never reflected on the fact that our elections come very near the beginning of Samhain; we regenerated our political life when the temperate climates head toward barrenness. I don’t know this, but I imagine there is a direct correlation; that is, I imagine we hold elections after the final harvest.
Let me look. Nothing on that, but wikipedia notes that Tuesday avoids the Sabbath, the traditional market days and made voting easier for farmers who would have to drive into the county seat to vote, a journey of a day or more. See more below from wikianswers:
“Tuesday was chosen as, in 1845, the United States was a predominantly agrarian society. Most people traveled by horse and buggy. Farmers needed a day to get to the county seat, a day to vote, and a day to get back, without interfering with the Sabbath. So that left Tuesday and Wednesday and, as Wednesday was market day, Tuesday was chosen.[7]
… An election date in November was seen as useful because the harvest would have been completed (important in an agrarian society) and the winter storms would not yet have begun in earnest (a plus in the days before paved roads and snowplows).”
This puts elections, and by default government, behind the Sabbath, the market day and the growing season in terms of communal values. Since the Celts began their new year with Samhain [and I do, too], it also places electoral choice at the beginning of a new year.
For most of our life as a nation, government was, in fact, something done during the fallow season. That’s why many (most?) of our legislatures meet in the winter months, e.g. Minnesota runs from January to some date in May. In our original constitution determination of voting eligibility was left to the states, the result: the only persons eligible to vote were white men with property* which, in general, meant farmers, so the work of government had to adjust to the rhythm’s of their lives.
*”Duke University professor Alexander Keyssar wrote in The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States:
At its birth, the United States was not a democratic nation—far from it. The very word “democracy” had pejorative overtones, summoning up images of disorder, government by the unfit, even mob rule. In practice, moreover, relatively few of the nation’s inhabitants were able to participate in elections: among the excluded were most African Americans, Native Americans, women, men who had not attained their majority, and white males who did not own land.” (History.org)
Here’s some information that was a surprise to me. Voting is not guaranteed in the constitution!
“…At the time of the American Civil War, most white men were allowed to vote, whether or not they owned property. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and even religious tests were used in various places, and most white women, people of color, and Native Americans still could not vote.
The United States Constitution, in Article VI, section 3, states that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” The Constitution, however, leaves the determination of voting qualifications to the individual states. Over time, the federal role in elections has increased through amendments to the Constitution and enacted legislation, such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.[1] At least four of the fifteen post-Civil War constitutional amendments were ratified specifically to extend voting rights to different groups of citizens. These extensions state that voting rights cannot be denied or abridged based on the following:
- Birth – “All persons born or naturalized” “are citizens” of the U.S. and the U.S. State where they reside (14th Amendment, 1868)
- “Race, color, or previous condition of servitude” – (15th Amendment, 1870)
- “On account of sex” – (19th Amendment, 1920)
- In Washington, D.C., presidential elections after 164 year suspension by U.S. Congress (23rd Amendment, 1961)
- (For federal elections) “By reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax” – (24th Amendment, 1964)
(For state elections) Taxes – (Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966))
- “Who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of age” (26th Amendment, 1971).
In addition, the 17th Amendment provided for the direct election of United States Senators.
The “right to vote” is not explicitly stated in the U.S. Constitution except in the above referenced amendments, and only in reference to the fact that the franchise cannot be denied or abridged based solely on the aforementioned qualifications. In other words, the “right to vote” is perhaps better understood, in layman’s terms, as only prohibiting certain forms of legal discrimination in establishing qualifications for suffrage. States may deny the “right to vote” for other reasons.
(source)
For example, many states require eligible citizens to register to vote a set number of days prior to the election in order to vote. More controversial restrictions include those laws that prohibit convicted felons from voting or, as seen inBush v. Gore, disputes as to what rules should apply in counting or recounting ballots [2]“