Employment Law Reminder - Election Requirements
As may be familiar from our alert before the primary elections in June, New York has particular requirements regarding employee time off to vote. There also is a notice requirement effective Tuesday, October 20th for most employers, explained below. The requirements are as follows:
An employee who is a Registered Voter is entitled to time off to vote, without a loss of pay, if the employee does not have sufficient time to vote outside of his/her scheduled working time. An employee has “sufficient time” to vote if s/he has 4 consecutive hours either between the opening of polls and the beginning of his/her working shift, or between the end of his/her working shift and the closing of the polls.
Example: if polls are open until 9:00 p.m. and an employee is scheduled to work from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., the employee has sufficient time to vote, because s/he has 4 consecutive hours from 5:00 p.m. through 9:00 p.m. to do so. Thus, the employee is not eligible for time off from work to vote.
If an employee does not have sufficient time to vote as explained above, then s/he may take off only as much time as is required to vote, up to a maximum of 2 hours, without any loss of pay. The employer may designate whether time off is provided at the beginning or end of the employee’s shift, and does not have to provide time off mid-shift.
Employers must conspicuously post a notice setting forth the provisions of the law, at least 10 working days before the election and until the close of polls on election day. For employers who are not open on weekends, that means by Tuesday, October 20th to be timely for the November 3rd election. A copy of the notice is here: https://www.elections.ny.gov/NYSBOE/elections/TimeOffToVoteNotice.pdf. Unfortunately, as of this writing, it does not appear that the Board of Elections has provided any guidance in terms of the posting requirement and employees who are working remotely, as many are due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, we only can assume that it will be sufficient to email remote employees the link to the notice, with a note that they should (1) follow the link; (2) review its contents in full; (3) direct any questions to Human Resources or another suitable employer designee; and (4) confirm receipt of the email.
An employee who requires working time off to vote must notify the employer at least 2 working days, but no more than 10 working days, prior to the election.
