美国为什么决定在11月第一个星期一以后的星期二进行大选？这与收获、宗教活动和商务薄记有关。

美国人在11月第一个星期一以后的星期二为大选投票。确定投票日期的方式似乎没有必要那么复杂，但在1845年确定这一投票日期时，情形并非如此。

当时，美国基本上是一个农业社会。投票定在11月是因为这时收获已经结束，而冬季尚未开始，因为寒冬天气可能阻止选民前往投票站。对于那些住在远离投票站农村地区的人来说，选择星期二而不是星期一可以使他们能够在星期天上教堂后仍有足够的时间抵达目的地按时投票。

可是立法者为何不选择11月的第一个星期二呢？他们避开11月1日是因为11月1日是万圣节（All Saints’ Day），罗马天主教教徒在这天必须参加弥撒，同时商人必须结算上个月的账目。

图为刚刚获得选举权的3名妇女1917年在纽约投票。

How did Americans decide to schedule general elections on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November? It had to do with harvest, religious services and business bookkeeping.

Americans go to the polls for general elections on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. If this seems like a needlessly complicated way to schedule a vote, it didn’t seem so in 1845, when the day was set.

The United States was largely an agrarian society then. Voting was scheduled for November because that was when the harvest was over, but before winter weather that might keep voters from the polls arrived. For those in rural areas who lived far from the polls, Tuesday, rather than Monday, was selected to allow them the option of traveling after Sunday church worship and still reaching their destinations in time to cast their votes.

But why didn’t lawmakers just settle on the first Tuesday in November? They wanted to avoid elections on November 1 because it’s All Saints’ Day, when Roman Catholics are obligated to attend Mass, and also the day when merchants balance the previous month’s accounts.

Here, three women, newly enfranchised to vote, cast their ballots in New York in 1917.