Guidelines on excused absence for voting

By Office of Personnel ManagementNovember 2, 2012

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The federal government has a long-standing policy of granting employees limited time off from work (excused absence) 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 excused absence 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, excused absence should rarely be needed.

A number of questions have been received regarding excused absence for the purpose of voting in the presidential election on Tuesday.

In response, the following guidelines have been issued by the Office of Personnel Management for agencies to consider when granting excused absence for voting:

* Generally, the Office of Personnel Management has advised agencies where the polls are not open at least three hours before or after an employee's regular work hours.

The agency 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" should be 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 (not to exceed one day) to allow the employee to make the trip to the voting place to cast a ballot.

If more than one day is needed, the employee may request annual leave or leave without pay for the additional period of absence.

For general information on federal pay, leave and work-scheduling policies, visit opm.gov/oca/index.asp.

Since policies may differ from agency to agency, employees should contact their agency human resources office for information on their agency's policy on excused absence for voting.

Agency field offices should contact their appropriate headquarters-level agency human resources office.

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