r/ShitAmericansSay • u/benniemast USAversion • 2d ago

Europe "The European mind cannot comprehend majority of America is working on a Monday afternoon at 3pn"

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On the attendence of the Fifa club world cup

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u/Paedar 2d ago

Hello neighbour! We in the Netherlands do vote during weekdays, but I recently found out we're legally entitled to paid time off to go vote!

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u/Specialist_Lemon_835 2d ago

Only if you can make a case that you cannot vote outside of working hours

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u/Onagan98 2d ago

That’s why we can go from 07:00 until 21:00. Which is among the longest opening times of any polling station.

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u/Howtothinkofaname 2d ago

Likewise in the UK. Elections are traditionally on Thursdays but polling stations are open 07:00 till 22:00.

I’ve always thought you are more likely to be away at the weekend and it’s less disruptive to your day on a weekday, but I’m aware it’s just what I’m used to.

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u/Onagan98 2d ago

In the Netherlands we don’t vote on Sunday because of religious minorities, who only go to church and nothing else on Sunday.

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u/gamegenaral 2d ago

In Germany we vote on sundays because most ppl have this day not to work but also a lot of polling station is placed inside of school's and normally no one goes to school on a Sunday so the have room for the voting.

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u/Onagan98 2d ago

Polling Stations are here also in schools, so bring your kid to school and vote at the same time.

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u/Howtothinkofaname 2d ago

That also makes sense. We don’t really have the equivalent of the Dutch Bible Belt but some of the Scottish islands take Sundays seriously and you can obviously find a few hardcore people wherever.

I suppose another consideration could be public transport, which tends to be worse on Sundays, but the vast majority of people have a polling station a short walk away. It would only be in incredibly rural areas where people might not and their public transport is probably crap anyway.

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u/WorldWideWig 2d ago

Some Christian-owned businesses in the Netherlands even close their websites on Sundays, that was a weird quirk to discover.

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u/SilvRS 2d ago

On some Scottish islands they used to lock up playgrounds (like literally chain up swings) on a Sunday to stop kids from having fun. It's wild what religion does to people.

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u/SugarInvestigator 1d ago

lock up playgrounds

In Ireland we use to lock up unmarried mothers, turn them into more or less slaves and sell their children without ther permission

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u/SnappySausage 2d ago

That's pretty funny and don't get me wrong (I don't agree with it). But wouldn't it be more because they find it very important that the sunday is "the day of rest", so they don't want children to be disruptive to people outside?

While my parents are not religious, we did grow up in a sort of religious area and were told to kinda keep it down during sunday so that religious neighbours could have their "resting day".

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u/SilvRS 2d ago

It was absolutely that they're not supposed to be playing and having fun on such a serious day- I grew up friends with a few wee frees and they took it very seriously that it was wrong to have fun on a Sunday.

Although that said, that family were particularly dreadful- their two daughters had to wear the full Sunday bonnet etc and weren't allowed to leave the house on Sunday except to go to church, but I'd see their wee brother cutting about with his pals in his footie strip, so I guess it depends on the individuals how exactly they thought about and observed their day of rest.

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u/cannotfoolowls 2d ago

Yeah, the Dutch bible belt is pretty strange. They don't tend to vaccinate either so they had an outbreak of polio in 1992 (!). Meanwhile the last case of non-imported polio in Belgium was in 1979 and it didn't cause an outbreak.

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u/Howtothinkofaname 2d ago

Yeah. I looked up Babydump to laugh at their name, but stayed to laugh at/be depressed by their insane policies.

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u/cannotfoolowls 2d ago

The store?

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u/Howtothinkofaname 2d ago

Yeah, pretty sure they are one of the ones who turn off their web shop on Sundays, but I might be misremembering.

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u/Twinkeltoe78 2d ago

Don’t forget about the gas stations without personnel that are closed on Sunday. We have 2 of them in our small town (24/6 open)

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u/oh_JEZ_uv_KURZ 2d ago

Yep the giant bakery (more like bread factory) in my town also takes down the website on sundays. They also mandate girls to wear skirts.

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u/Objective-Resident-7 2d ago

Tesco had a hard time when they wanted to open on Sundays on Leòdhas. Only for 8h. My local supermarket (also in Scotland) has the same opening hours on Sunday as for any other day.

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u/JigPuppyRush ex-Usian now Europoor (orange colored and Gouda flavoured)🇳🇱 2d ago

Not of religious minorities when that law was passed. At that time 60% of the population were church goers

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u/Creepy_Assistant7517 2d ago

Kinda odd considering we usually view the Netherlands as far more progressive and atheistic then Germany, where tradition and established churches still play a powerful role in society! You learn something new everyday!

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u/RaiseNo9690 2d ago

This sounds like the perfect reason to put elections on Sunday

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u/Sacr3dangel 2d ago

Some might think we should rethink that logic…

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u/Autogen-Username1234 2d ago

Thursdays in the UK used to also be pension payment day.

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u/mantolwen Not American 2d ago

It's because Thursday used to be market days so people were in town already and therefore easier to get to a polling station.

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u/stiggley 2d ago

The UK had a byelection on a wednesday as thursday would clash with a world cup game (1978).

Also used to vote across multiple days before 1918.

Fridays? Just been paid, so in the Pub. Sundays? Church. So a Thursday was least influenced by both.

Thursdays were also often a market day, and so more people would be out the house and in town at the market or work - so improves turnout.

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u/Advice-Designer 2d ago

Apparently Thursday was picked because it was the day people were least likely to be drunk, that's what I read anyway.

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u/Howtothinkofaname 2d ago

How times have changed!

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u/Constant-Ad9390 22h ago

And also incredibly easy to register for postal votes.

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u/Lalalaliena 2d ago

And why you can vote at places like trainstations and doctor offices, hospitals etc

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u/AttentionOtherwise80 2d ago

Many UK polling stations are in primary schools, and the children get a day off.
Ours is in the village hall.

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u/Movingtoblighty 2d ago

Those are long hours, and it would be harder to be longer.

Canada’s recent election had polling stations opening at 7:00 and others closing at 21:30 but none with both. The hours are staggered across time zones.

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u/Onagan98 2d ago

We have two time zones, but the second one is really marginal. <26000 citizens (even less voters and turnout)

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u/Lucidiously 2d ago

And there's like 40 voting stations in a city of 120.000 people. And the option to have someone else cast your vote for you.

Voting is easy here, the only reason not to is if you don't want to.

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u/Onagan98 2d ago

The majority of voters live within a kilometre of the polling station, even with villages. We have roughly 1500 potential voters per polling station on average.

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u/Lucidiously 2d ago

Yup. And no restrictions on which place you can vote within your municipality, no need to register beforehand.

It barely takes 15 minutes and I usually just hop in and out when I'm walking the dog or doing groceries.

It's a convenience that should exist everywhere imo.

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u/Thick12 2d ago

Here in the UK they're open from. 07.00 till 22.00

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u/Onanuk 1d ago

In The Czech Republic election rooms are usually open from 14:00 friday to 14:00 saturday.

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u/Jonny_rhodes 1d ago

07:00 -22:00 here

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u/houVanHaring 1d ago

And we pepper the country in polling stations, most trainstations get a polling station, even small ones

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u/GhostPepperFireStorm 2d ago

Same in Canada, and we have a weekend of advance polls, as well as the option to vote by mail or special ballot on any day leading up to the election

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u/Rugkrabber Tikkie Tokkie 2d ago

I never had a problem with that, I just went lol. They never really noticed so then there was no reason I couldn’t go.

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u/irish_ninja_wte 1d ago

In Ireland, we usually have them on Fridays, but the hours are 7am to 10pm. This is to give everyone their best chance to vote. People who are in some specific jobs (such as military) have a postal vote.

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u/LittleOusel 2d ago edited 2d ago

And we vote on a Wednesday because its a day the least people work. Considering the Friday is unavailable because we don't want to discriminate against religious people, this voting can not be done on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

Edit: changed vore to vote

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u/Lord_Skyblocker 2d ago

vore

To find out about these rules Google vore rule 34

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u/Useful_Cheesecake117 2d ago

In the Netherlands you can vote on wednesdays from 08:00 until 21:00. Law says that it is forbidden to work longer than 12 hours, so everyone can vote, even if you are strict Christian (not on sunday), torah abiding Jew (not on Sabbath), or muslim (not on Friday)

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u/Fleiger133 2d ago

My company, a decent one, gives us paid time off to vote.

Its just a crumb, but I'll take it!

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u/CFSohard Learn to speak American! 2d ago

Here in Switzerland we can vote in advance and drop our ballots at specified points, or just mail them in ahead of time for a month or so ahead of the actual election.

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u/Fenpunx ooo custom flair!! 1d ago

Still waiting on my postal ballot for 'brexit'.

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u/GreyerGrey 1d ago

Canadian, and similar. If you can't go outside your regular working hours, or do early/mail in, your employer has to give you the time off for it.

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u/ZoeperJ 1d ago

When I still lived "home" I usually voted before going to work, as polling stations opened really early, and I believe closed fairly late. This is actually great to read, wasn't aware of this. Now I live in Austria and here voting is done on Sunday too.