General elections on Thursdays

Only talking about this last night. Why not Sundays ? Surely if the Libs are pushing for the slightly earlier date this would be an opportunity to try it out.

It's about time they stopped polling in schools, a nightmare for parents. There are plenty of other places which could be used. Supermarket maybe or shopping malls.We just need some imagination.

As teachers we used it as an extra planning day and just avoided the hall. Great for us but awful, in years when there were several polls , for education.

We’ve been doing postal votes for years now. It does take away the feeling of occasion but is so much easier.

Saturdays is the day which makes most sense nowadays (thanks for the history Scribbles), although the polls would have to open really early to catch people on their way to the shops and may mean paying staff a higher rate.

In Australia where voting is compulsory elections are always held on a Saturday. Polling booths are open between 8am and 6pm. There has always been an opportunity to vote at an early polling cent or to arrange for a postal vote prior to election day. In the last few elections early voting has become very popular and can be done for about 3 weeks (if my memory serves me correctly) before election day. It's my preferred way of voting as it is far less crowded and parking usually easier.

So elections on a Sunday would disrupt church services if that was the venue.

Apparently, they can be held on any day of the week but, since the 1930s, have been held on Thursdays.

This was because most people got paid on Friday and so anyone working would be too strapped for cash to go to the pub after work. Therefore, they were considered more likely to go and vote on the way home!

Friday and Saturday, they were likely to go straight out to football or to socialise after work and, thus, not vote. Sunday elections would deter people from going to church.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were just considered grindingly awful work days when everyone kept their heads down, got on with real life and couldn't be bothered with politics.

According to the social researchers of the day, this left Thursday as the day most likely to get people into the polling booths!

Lots of countries have elections on Sunday. No idea why Thursdays have been chosen.

The school I worked at used to have to close for polling until some time in the 90s, when for the first time we were asked whether we would “host”, instead of it just being assumed that we would. We said no and they found another venue.

Our polling station is the local church.

A lot of councils seem to be trying to find alternatives to schools anyway. But not every school is disrupted. My son went to one that was able to stay open while part of it was used for polling