Human Resources Division
Excused Absence for Voting
The Office of Personnel Management has issued the following guidance
in response to questions received pertaining to excused absence for voting.
If there are any questions, please contact the Pay and Leave Staff/Policy
Branch/HRD on 301-504-1443 (Denise Corbitt) or 301-504-4426 (Ted Nykiel).
SUBJECT: Excused Absence for Voting
The Federal Government has a longstanding policy of granting employees
limited time off from work (i.e., 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.
We offer the following guidelines for agencies to consider when granting
excused absence 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 excused absence 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.
- 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 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 on 01/02/2003
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