In many places in the US you cannot bring your children with you to vote. So many people rely on public schools as day care so that they can vote. In places that cancelled school on election day recently (people vote at schools often, and there were security concerns after recent shootings), the voter turnout was lower in segments of the population that statistically are less likely to have family/partner available to watch children, or the means to pay for childcare.

I think it is fair to restate that your argument is: "Because there are classes of people who cannot vote because children are restricted in voting areas, election day should not be a federal holiday."

I am having a little trouble taking that in good faith. For one, the evidence presented is not of a holiday shared by everyone (friends who could watch kids, partners who also have jobs, etc).

That's before asking if it's right that children cannot be with you to vote or if that could be done better. That's before asking if there was higher turnout in other groups, like underpaid teachers.

That really wasn't my argument at all. In so far as I had one. The US system has so many more severe issues that a holiday seems minor and it is somewhat complex as an issue. Letting a parent bring in five children probably does create concerns as well.

Other than bankers and people who work for the government (like teachers) few people get government holidays in my experience. There is a surge of temporary daycare workers for those days so parents can still go to work. Poorer parents dread those days. Public school, especially post pandemic has turned into free childcare and little more due to teacher shortages.

Early voting seems like a good thing to continue to me.

Fixing the issues that make your vote irrelevant at the national level unless you live anywhere but a very short list of places would be much higher on my list than a holiday. The gerrymandering is painfully obvious on the voting maps.