Election Holiday?

I had some business to take care of with county government this week, so as I was creating my "to do" list on Sunday I knew to not schedule completing that task on Tuesday-primary election day-because county offices are closed for the election.

But what I didn't know, as I sent emails to state offices on Tuesday and out of office notifications came back to me, the State of Indiana observes election day as "Election Holiday". I guess I don't care, but here's one of those things that rub me wrong from my political office days.

Municipal elections do not follow state and county election years; they are in the off-years (2011 is a city election year). River city's policy with regard to primary and general election days is that employees do not get that day off. I believe that attempts to make it a holiday had been made in the past prior to it coming before us prior to the 2007 elections. We entertained the idea of giving municipal employees those days off for 2007, and of course it made the newspaper. That's when a very angry, big-time Republican constituent called me and chewed me out for even remotely considering giving employees that day off. Imagine the lost revenue! he exclaimed as he told me I wasn't being a good conservative.

So I asked him, in our very Republican Republicania County, if he ever ONCE called up our Republican county commissioners to complain about giving county employees election days off every other year (unlike once every 4 years in the city), or if he ever estimated the lost revenue by county employees. No was his response. So I asked why. Well, we're talking about city business here. OK, but it seems like far more revenue (which is a bogus claim anyway) is lost by county employees in our staunchly conservative county. He didn't like that. Ultimately I voted against the measure.

So now I'm wondering if my concerned former constituent (I'm figuring he voted against me for questioning his double-standard) has picked up the phone and called Mitch to complain about the HUGE loss of revenue created by state employees taking the day off. I'm guessing not.

How 'bout it.....should government offices be CLOSED for elections?