Which states mandate paid voting leave for employees
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With just under 70 days until election day, voters nationwide will soon be making plans to vote — but some may face a routine barrier to casting a ballot: work.
Why it matters: No federal law mandates that employers give employees time off to vote, leaving the issue of paid — or any — voting leave up to states or individual companies.
- Fewer than half of U.S. states require employers to provide paid time off to vote.
Caveat: For states that do provide some form of PTO to vote, laws vary significantly.
- Several states do not require time off if sufficient time during non-work hours is available while polls are open.
- At least a dozen states that provide paid leave — including Oklahoma and Iowa — require the employee to request or give notice before taking time off to vote.
- Maryland and Oklahoma require employees to submit proof they voted or attempted to vote.
- In California, among other states, employees are allotted up to two hours of paid time off to vote (if there is not sufficient time outside of working hours).
- Others, like Texas, do not list a specific threshold for paid voting leave, though it is offered in the Lone Star State unless polls are open for two consecutive hours outside of one's working hours.
Yes, but: For many states, early voting begins weeks ahead of election day, whether in-person or via mail-in ballots.
- In 2020, an unprecedented mid-pandemic election year, more than 100 million Americans voted early, whether in person or by mail.
- Hawaii and Washington, two of eight states that automatically mail ballots to registered voters, no longer have voting leave provisions as voting can effectively be done from home.
Zoom out: There has been a push in recent years for U.S. companies to guarantee paid time off for their employees to vote, regardless of state statutes.
- Snap Inc., Linktree, Kayak and Hims & Hers are among several brands that have joined Vote.org's ElectionDay.org campaign — an initiative that relaunched Tuesday to enlist organizations to provide employees with paid time off to vote.
What they're saying: "We believe that no voters should have to choose between their paycheck and their right to vote," Tyler Hagenbuch, Vote.org's head of strategic partnerships, said.
- "We want to offer ... flexibility instead of nuance," he said. "Whereas state laws are nuanced and complicated, we want something that is more voter friendly."
- While every store can't close doors on election day, he noted, companies can offer time off for voters to participate in early voting or drop off mail-in ballots.
There have been efforts to pass a national law mandating paid voting leave in federal elections, like the Time Off to Vote Act sponsored by Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), which proposed a minimum of two consecutive hours of paid leave "in order to vote, return in person a ballot that was received in the mail or perform other voting-related activity."
- Additionally, lawmakers have introduced legislation to make election day a federal holiday — an effort Vote.org supports.
The bottom line: "Not all voters are created equal, and not every voter has the same circumstance," Hagenbuch said. "So just as much as those state laws vary, every voter's circumstance varies."
Go deeper: Inside Trump's stunning flip-flop on early voting
