On Tuesday, Nov. 5, millions of Americans will cast their votes to elect the 47th president of the United States. The act of voting on the first Tuesday that follows a Monday in November is a tradition that reaches back almost 180 years. The decision in 1845 to pass a federal law to nominate a midweek polling day in the fall to choose the most powerful leader in the free world has its roots in the industrial makeup of 19th-century America, says Jessica Linker, an assistant professor in history at Northeastern University.
By the middle of the 1800s, states were increasingly making the right to vote available to non-land owning white men over the age of 21 (equal voting rights were not achieved until the 1960s). With that expansion of the popular vote came a desire to streamline the presidential voting process and move away from the previous system that allowed states to hold elections within a 34-day period before the first Wednesday in December.
