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Why is the US presidential election held on a Tuesday in November?

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.

Read more on Northeastern Global News.

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