With Election Day coming up, work scheduling issues may arise for some employees depending on the voting hours available to them. Generally, voting is to be done on an employee’s own time before or after work, but agencies do have authority under some circumstances to grant excused absence for employees to vote, to the extent that such time off does not seriously interfere with agency operations.
Where the polls are not open at least three hours either before or after an employee’s regular work hours, supervisors may grant a limited amount of excused absence that will permit the employee to report for work three hours after the polls open or leave from work three hours before the polls close, whichever requires the lesser amount of time off.
An employee’s “regular work hours” are determined by reference to the time of day the employee normally arrives at and departs from work. If an employee’s voting place is beyond normal commuting distance and vote by absentee ballot is not permitted, the employing agency may grant excused absence to allow the employee to make the trip to the voting place to cast a ballot.
The most recent guidance is this 2012 memo from OPM: http://www.chcoc.gov/Transmittals/TransmittalDetails.aspx?TransmittalID=5057
