OPM has expanded previous policies on administrative leave–paid time off without charge to any other form of leave–for federal employees to vote or to serve in certain types of work at polls.
A memo tells agencies that they should allow up to four hours of paid time off per “election event”—including primaries and caucuses in addition to a general election—for elections at the federal, state, county, municipal, tribal or territorial level. “This administrative leave may be used for voting on the established election day or for early voting, whichever option is used by the employee with respect to an election event,” it says.
Further, agencies are to allow up to four hours of administrative leave per leave year to serve as a non-partisan poll worker or to participate in non-partisan observer activities at elections, in addition to any such leave an employee uses for voting.
The memo carries out terms of a 2021 executive order calling on OPM to examine strategies to expand opportunities for federal employees to vote, including to participate in early voting, and to better support employees who want to volunteer for poll watching or working.
Under prior policy, if polls were not open at least three hours either before or after an employee’s regular work hours, supervisors could grant a limited amount of excused absence allowing 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. Agencies could grant excused absence for early voting only if the employee would be unable to vote on the day of the election because of activities directly related to the agency’s mission such as temporary duty travel and cannot vote by absentee ballot.
There was no specific authority for taking leave for poll watching or working, although in a memo ahead of the 2020 elections OPM told agencies that they should “try to accommodate” employee requests for administrative leave for those purposes so long as there would not be “negative impacts to critical missions.”
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