Pay & Leave

Administrative Leave for Voting

The Office of Personnel Management has issued the following guidance in response to questions received pertaining to administrative leave for voting. If there are any questions, please contact a member of the Pay and Leave Staff:       Terri Ponte, 301-504-1474; Michelyn Boyd, 301-504-1466; or Ted Nykiel, 301-504-4426.

SUBJECT:    Administrative Leave for Voting

The Federal Government has a longstanding policy of granting employees limited time off from work (i.e., administrative leave) to vote in Federal, State, county, or municipal elections or in referendums on any civic matter in their community. Agencies have discretionary authority to grant administrative leave to the extent that such time off does not seriously interfere with agency operations. Typically, polling places throughout the United States are open for extended periods of time. Therefore, administrative leave should rarely be needed.
We offer the following guidelines for agencies to consider when granting administrative leave for voting in the Presidential election:

• Generally, where the polls are not open at least 3 hours either before or after an employee's regular work hours, an agency may grant a limited amount of administrative leave that will permit the employee to report for work 3 hours after the polls open or leave from work 3 hours before the polls close, whichever requires the lesser amount of time off. An employee's "regular work hours" should be determined by reference to the time of day the employee normally arrives at and departs from work.

For example, the polls in your area are open from 7am - 8pm. Your TOD is 7:00am – 3:30pm.  You’ve chosen to vote in the morning at 7am.  You would not be eligible for administrative leave because of the 3 hour window available to vote after your TOD ends at 3:30pm (the polls are open until 8pm).  Most employees are on a maxiflex schedule and can use gliding time so administrative leave is rarely necessary.

• If an employee's voting place is beyond normal commuting distance and vote by absentee ballot is not permitted, the employing agency may grant administrative leave (not to exceed 1 day) to allow the employee to make the trip to the voting place to cast a ballot. If more than 1 day is needed, the employee may request annual leave or leave without pay for the additional period of absence.
  
  
  Last Updated 02/15/2008