I found an op-ed in the NY Times that claimed that the best way to increase voter turnout was by having election day fall on a weekend. They provide a few examples but nothing too detailed. I tried pulling in some data and seeing if I could come to the same conclusion. I used two data sets: voter turn out by country and election dates by country.
Combining this data into one table, and ignoring the missing data:
| Country | Election Type | Date | Day of week | Weekend | Turnout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Czech Republic | Presidential Final | Fri 2/15/08 | 6 | No | 85% |
| South Korea | Parliamentary | Wed 4/9/08 | 4 | No | 75% |
| Canada | Parliamentary | Tue 10/14/08 | 3 | No | 76% |
| Czech Republic | Parliamentary | Fri 10/17/08 | 6 | No | 85% |
| United States | Presidential | Tue 11/4/08 | 3 | No | 54% |
| Romania | Parliamentary | Fri 11/28/08 | 6 | No | 81% |
| Russia | Presidential | Sun 3/2/08 | 1 | Yes | 61% |
| Malta | Parliamentary | Sat 3/8/08 | 7 | Yes | 94% |
| Spain | Parliamentary | Sun 3/9/08 | 1 | Yes | 73% |
| Italy | Parliamentary | Sun 4/13/08 | 1 | Yes | 90% |
| Iceland | Presidential (Cancelled) | Sat 6/28/08 | 7 | Yes | 89% |
| Austria | Parliamentary | Sun 9/28/08 | 1 | Yes | 92% |
| New Zealand | Parliamentary | Sat 11/8/08 | 7 | Yes | 88% |
It does seem as if they are on to something - the average turnout for weekday election days was 76% while the average turnout for weekend election days was 84%. This wasn't a very rigorous examination and I am sure there are many more issues that factor in to the voting process but it does make intuitive sense.