Election day is one of the most important days in the United States. When you consider the fact that it determines who will be our President for the next four years, it seems like a no- brainer that we should make it a national holiday and give people the opportunity to vote. Yet it’s becoming harder and harder to vote in person on election day.

Historically election day was held on Tuesdays to make life easier for a U.S. citizen. We were largely an agrarian society, and one with deep Christian ties. Before cars, it would take people roughly a day to travel to their polling station alone. The government decided to make life easier on its people and choose Tuesday as election day because it meant they wouldn’t have to travel on the Sabbath (Sundays) and they could be back home in time for market day, which was commonly held on Wednesdays.

Jump forward a few hundred years, however, and Tuesday has merely become another day in the work week; one with painful commutes, long workdays and tired people. Thus, election day has become a stressor on many people who already have so much on their plate, and now they have to take the time to go out of their way and vote.

According to U.S. Census records from the past decade, one of the main reasons people choose not to vote is the “inconvenience” of it. By keeping election day the way it is, we are changing the outcome of the vote.

Voting shouldn’t seem like a chore. It’s an amazing privilege we take for granted. We are allowed to have a say in who rules our country. Other people around the world aren’t always as lucky.

So how can we change this mindset? An important first step is to remind yourself of how lucky you are to live in a country that allows you to vote and for that vote to matter.

But we also need to change the tradition. The whole premise of voting on Tuesdays is supposed to be helpful, and it’s simply not anymore. There are three ways I can see this happening.

We could move election day. Instead of making it the first Tuesday of November, we could make it a Saturday and Sunday, when more of the population has off. While this isn’t a perfect fix, it’s at least better than the system we have in place now.

A better solution would be to make election day a national holiday. Every citizen in the U.S. would benefit from this. There would be no excuse not to vote, as you would have the whole day to do so. We could even replace this holiday with an outdated and unnecessary holiday like Columbus Day. This way businesses and schools could keep their students or employees for the same amount of days as they were planning to already. There would be virtually no negative impact.

However, the best option would be a combination of the two. If we moved election day to Monday, and made it a three-day weekend, we would most likely see the most results. No one would have an excuse not to vote, and most people would be in great spirits about it because it would be a long weekend. We would see genuine celebration about our right to vote, and that’s already a huge jump from what we have now.

There are systems in place right now to alleviate the unhappiness with voting on a Tuesday, but they are more of a semi-solution than anything.

It’s common knowledge that you are able to vote early, whether it be by mail or in person. This means you fill out your ballot, sometimes weeks, in advance, and that you are able to skip the polling places on election day. This might seem like a great idea, but it’s potentially problematic.

This is because when you vote in advance, you could potentially cast your ballot before learning evidence that would change who you trust to be president. This year’s election is a perfect example. People were able to vote before Hillary Clinton was found not guilty of criminal activity in relation to her email scandal, and before Donald Trump was accused of numerous scandals. Many people may have voted for either person without knowledge, and then left unable to change their vote.

While we may not be able to get the government to shift election day in the next four years, the only place we can start is with each of you. I challenge you all to speak with your teachers and employers. Explain why election day is an important day for people to have free. If enough places start to respect this, we might start to see some real change happening higher up.

Be the change you want to see, so you, too, have every opportunity to vote.