The Time Off to Vote Movement is Growing, But Obstacles Remain

The long lines at early voting locations across the U.S. in the run-up to Election Day are a highly visible reminder that many voters need to excuse themselves from work for hours at a time just to cast their ballots. Employers can help to resolve the problem by offering paid time off for voting. Still, significant barriers will remain until all voters have an equal opportunity to cast their vote.

The business case for paid time off to vote

Advocates for paid time off emphasize that improvements in employee engagement and talent recruitment balance out the expense of lost working hours. For example, ahead of the U.S. midterm elections in 2022, the CEO of the advertising and marketing agency Red Branch Media penned a powerful op/ed outlining how paid time off for voting has “more than paid for itself in recruitment, retention and hiring” at the company.  

“When employees feel like their voices are being heard and that their opinions matter, they’re more likely to be engaged in their work. This leads to better performance and higher productivity,” Red Branch Media CEO Maren Hogan explained.

In the years since, the paid time off movement has grown considerably.  “The idea that employers can and should provide their employees time off to vote has gained significant momentum in recent years, evolving from a niche perk to an expected benefit in many industries,” Lars Schmidt, founder of the human resources consulting firm Amplify, wrote in an article for Fast Company this week. 

As time off for voting becomes a new standard for employers, some consider the paid leave movement a natural evolution of corporate social responsibility — particularly since less than half of U.S. states mandate paid voting leave. Schmidt echoes that sentiment, describing the movement as a permanent fixture, “driven by a combination of employee expectations, brand considerations, and a growing recognition of the link between civic engagement and workplace satisfaction.”

Business leaders can give themselves at least part of the credit for building momentum toward paid time off. In 2018, hundreds of corporations representing approximately 2 million workers launched the Time to Vote organization, focusing on an employer’s opportunity to make a difference by providing paid time off for voting.

Time to Vote launched with roughly 400 corporate members, which grew to 700 by 2020 and tops 2,200 today — more than double the organization’s initial goal of 1,000 participants. Meanwhile National Voter Registration Day, an annual campaign supported by large companies like Aflac, Microsoft, Paramount and Target, helped to get more than 5 million people registered to vote since it launched in 2012. 

Even if they have the day off, why should anyone wait for hours to cast a ballot?

Despite these corporate efforts, the question remains: Why must any voter in modern America — with paid time off or without — stand in line for hours to cast a ballot while others can breeze in and out of their polling place with practically no wait, or simply mail in their ballot or drop it off?

While the bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Administration agreed a decade ago that no one should have to wait in line for more than 30 minutes to vote, about a fifth of voters faced longer waits when casting their ballots in 2020, according to the MIT Election Data and Science Lab. 

State laws often contribute to the wait times people see on Election Day. “Long waits at polling places are disruptive, disenfranchising, and all too common. Black and Latino voters are especially likely to endure them,” a research team at the Brennan Center for Justice found in a 2020 report.

In particular, communities with fewer poll workers, voting machines and other election resources tend to experience longer waits. When states reduce the number of polling places, limit early voting or make it more difficult to vote by mail, it adds pressure that leads to longer wait times. Voters waiting in long lines are also especially vulnerable to political violence, the Brennan Center for Justice found.

While a 2022 study suggests that paid time off can motivate people to stand in line regardless of the waiting time, some workers are left out of paid leave policies altogether.

“Workers of color, particularly women of color, are more likely to face unpredictable and challenging schedules, potentially compounding the growing racial voter turnout gap,” Molly Weston Williamson, a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress, wrote in the report. 

In addition, convenient access to a polling place also varies considerably depending on the voter’s ability to work at or close to home, in contrast to others who commute long distances to work far from their local polling place. An additional dividing line exists between gig workers and self-employed individuals who can afford to give themselves time off to vote, and those who can’t afford to lose valuable time at work.

Paid leave or not, long lines also disproportionately impact voters who are less than able-bodied, or who have small children or other dependents in their care.

Altogether, these barriers to voters indicate that paid leave is an important but insufficient contribution to voting rights in the U.S. Employers who participate in the paid time off movement can build on their efforts by advocating for ballot access on a more holistic basis, including a more equitable distribution of in-person polling places as well as mail-in voting, drop-boxes, and other election reforms that help close the gap between voter registration and voter turnout.