OPM Issues Reminder on Administrative Leave for Voting Employees

An especially wild presidential election cycle is (finally) winding down, and Nov. 5 now looms less than eight weeks away.

With election day in mind, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) recently served a reminder to federal agencies that they must allow workers to use administrative leave for take part in take part in the democratic process on election day.

In March 2021, the Biden administration issued Executive Order 14019 on Promoting Access to Voting, which directed federal agencies to “coordinate with the heads of executive agencies … to provide recommendations to the President, through the assistant to the president for domestic policy, on strategies to expand the federal government’s policy of granting employees time off to vote in federal, state, local, trial and territorial elections.”

The order also noted that such recommendations should include efforts to ensure federal employees have opportunities to take part in early voting.

In March 2022, OPM issued a memorandum to implement that order. With its most recent memo on the matter, the federal government’s HR department reiterated to federal employers that they are to grant workers as much as four hours of administrative leave per year to serve as a non-partisan poll worker or non-partisan observer. This leave is in addition to any administrative leave a federal employee uses to vote, according to OPM.

“We are also clarifying that employees who use administrative leave to serve as a non-partisan poll worker or non-partisan observer are not required to return compensation or fees received for performing this service to their employing agency,” wrote Robert H. Shriver, III, OPM acting director, noting that additional conditions and limitations for administrative leave for voting and serving as a non-partisan worker or non-partisan observer are found in the March 2022 guidance.