That Election Day is a New York City holiday is drawing criticism from political observers and former officials who say the holiday does little to encourage voters to go to the polls.

Even though yesterday was expected to be one of the quietest Election Days in recent history, it was a holiday for many of the more than 300,000 city employees. City offices and public schools were closed, garbage and recycling pickup was suspended, alternate side of the street parking rules were not enforced, and parents of about 1 million students were left to find child care.

“It’s ridiculous,” a former parks commissioner, Henry Stern, said. “If they can think of a reason to have a holiday, they’ll have a holiday.”

New York City has broken ranks with the state and federal government when it comes to observing Election Day as a holiday. It is an optional holiday at the state level, which means state offices stay open and employees can take a day off on Election Day or any other day of their choosing. The federal government does not consider Election Day a holiday.

There is, however, some support for turning Election Day into a national day off. Senators Clinton and Kerry have said they back the plan as a way to increase America’s historically low voter turnout, and after the 2000 presidential election and Florida vote recount, presidents Carter and Ford, who led a commission to re-examine voting laws, concluded it should be a national holiday.

Mayor Koch said yesterday that he recalled a time when city employees were given two hours off of work to vote on Election Day. Giving people a day off to vote doesn’t encourage them to go to the polls, he said — it encourages them to take a trip.

“I think it’s an excess holiday,” he said. “It’s one of those things that the unions got in collective bargaining, that’s how it came about.”

Philadelphia used to close its city offices on Election Day but ended the practice in 1993 under Mayor Edward Rendell. During a lecture at the Manhattan Institute that year, Mr. Rendell said the city saved about $2.7 million in overtime expenses for each of the four holidays it cut from its schedule.

“Police have to work, fire have to work, prison guards have to work, water people have to work. So many of our people have to work on holidays, that when you designate something as a holiday, like Flag Day, everybody gets overtime,” he said.

A spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, Jason Post, said he could not immediately say how many city employees worked on Election Day.
A professor of political science at Rutgers University, Peter McDonough, said he thought Election Day should be a holiday.

“Without question it should be a holiday every year,” he said, adding that private employees should be given a few hours to vote but not be allowed to take the entire day off.

He said the lack of competitive elections in New York this year should not be weighed in a debate over whether Election Day is accorded holiday status because an uptick in voter turnout could increase competition for elected office.

The executive director of Citizens Union, Richard Dadey, said the idea of turning Election Day into a holiday dates back to political patronage days, when city employees were given the day off to ensure their employer was re-elected.

“This is an old practice whose usefulness is outdated,” Mr. Dadey said. As the city “wishes to increase the productivity of its workers and save costs, it’s definitely something that should be re-examined.”

If Election Day remains a city holiday, Dr. Dadey said he would like to see a campaign to encourage municipal employees to staff polling places. He said city employees could ease a shortage of skilled poll workers “and provide an important public service.”

Supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis, a likely mayoral candidate, said that if he were mayor he’d look at turning the Election Day holiday into a personal day that could be used at any time, thus avoiding a shutdown of city offices.

“We’d rather give a personal day where the employee can take any day off they really want and not pay all the extra money the city has to pay in overtime,” he said.

He added that if 300,000 city employees get the day off, they should, at least, vote.