History of Election Day: Why we Vote on a Tuesday in November

Bill Petro
4 min readNov 7, 2022

Why does the U.S. vote on a Tuesday in November?

Historically, the United States was an agrarian society where much of the calendar revolved around farming. In 1840, Congress set voting day on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November.

This time provided a convenient month for farmers, who needed to travel perhaps…

Bill Petro

Writer, technologist, historian. Former Silicon Valley tech exec. Author of fascinating articles on history, tech, pop culture, & travel. https://billpetro.com