WASHINGTON -- Results of a bipartisan poll released yesterday on the eve of Election Day found that nearly two-thirds of those surveyed think the American way of voting needs to be changed, but no majority emerged in favor of weekend voting.

A thousand adults were asked -- in a poll conducted Sept. 27-29, by The Tarrance Group, run by Ed Goeas, a Republican, and Lake Snell Perry Mermin/Decision Research, led by Celinda Lake, a Democrat -- their opinions of various proposals for changing the way the nation votes. Since the 2000 national election, when the U.S. Supreme Court, in effect, decided that Republican George W. Bush had won amid the Florida recount chaos, various commissions have made numerous proposals for change, including requiring photo IDs, voting on weekends and holding voting open for two days instead of one.

In 2002, the major reason voters offered for not going to the polls was "too busy/schedule conflicts." In this latest poll, 57 percent said they liked the idea of drop-by voting, with voters able to cast their ballots within a three-week window at designated polling stations. Voting by mail seemed a reasonable proposal for 56 percent. Providing all workers with a half-day off or paid leave to vote was favored by 49 percent. Only 31 percent endorsed on-line voting. Establishing a national voting holiday was saluted by 46 percent.

But only 45 percent said they would approve of designating Election Day on a weekend. That was a disappointment to a coalition -- called Why Tuesday? -- that argues that national voting on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November is a sacred cow that may be hindering rather than promoting balloting. That Tuesday was set by federal law in 1845, mainly because it was then deemed the easiest day for farmers to travel to the county seat to vote.

But now, foes of Tuesday voting say it's a regular workday for millions of Americans who must take a day off from work or scramble to get to the polls before they close, while millions of children are not in class if their schools are used as polling stations.

Why Tuesday? (www.whytuesday.org), chaired by two onetime presidential candidates, former Rep. Jack Kemp, R-N.Y., and former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., does not advocate a specific remedy for low voter turnout and other voting problems, but it's trying to start a national conversation over the issue of voting practices in the United States. The impetus is the 40th anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Why Tuesday? honorary chairman Andrew Young, a former Atlanta mayor, United Nations ambassador and congressman, said, "It doesn't make sense why we vote on Tuesday. I've worked in politics at every level. It took me a long time to say, 'Why do we do this?' If we're going to continue to be the leader of democracy in the free world, we have to do better" than have voter turnout rates of 36 percent to 39 percent in non-presidential years.

The United States ranks 139th out of 172 nations in its voter turnout, Mr. Young said. In 36 other democracies, turnout rates average 73 percent. On average, only 50 percent of eligible voters choose the president in the United States.

Norman Ornstein, an American Enterprise Institute resident scholar in public policy and a CBS news election analyst, supports the objectives of Why Tuesday? He expressed concerned about the trend toward absentee voting, arguing that mailed-in ballots and Internet voting lead to community alienation and fewer voters. He personally favors instituting voting from noon on a Saturday to noon on a Sunday.

"I know there will be resistance to this," Mr. Ornstein said. "Election officials don't like the idea of weekend voting; it means more work and hassle for them."

Mr. Goeas said his polling tells him that the key to a bigger voter turnout is a wider sense of community. Older people vote more, he said, as do married people, those with children, those who attend church and those who are better educated.

Some conservatives argue that changing national voting to a day other than Tuesday would help Democrats, whose ranks include more union members who may have trouble getting off work. Mr. Goeas said he saw no basis for that concern, especially because stay-at-home parents are less likely to vote than their work-outside-the-home peers.

The poll found that if voting were on weekends, 52 percent of African Americans said they would be more likely to vote, as would 48 percent of Hispanics and young people ages 18 to 34. About 4 in 10 working women said they would be more likely to vote on a Saturday or Sunday.

The poll found that 62 percent of Americans said they favored having Congress pass laws making it easier to vote in federal elections.