California Time Off To Vote Labor Law Poster

[laborlaw]

If a voter does not have sufficient time outside of working hours to vote at a statewide election, the voter may, without loss of pay, take off enough working time which when added to the voting time available outside of working hours will enable the voter to vote. No more than two hours of the time taken off for voting shall be without loss of pay. (California Elections Code Section 14000) The time off for voting shall be only at the beginning or end of the regular working shift, whichever allows the most free time for voting and the least time off from the regular working shift unless otherwise mutually agreed.If the employee on the third working day prior to the day of election, knows or has reason to believe that time off will be necessary to be able to vote on election day, the employee shall give the employer at least two working days' notice that time off for voting is desired, in accordance with the provisions of this section.
SECRETARY OF STATE BILL JONES

[gyasuda]

If an employee takes advantage of California Elections Code 14000, the employee can take two hours off without loss of pay.

Can an employer enforce that his employee take vacation time or leave of absence with pay for two hours, so the employee could vote? I believe that is within the law where the voter is away from work without loss of pay.

[Pattymd]

Yes, they can, to my knowledge. However, if you did not have any vacation time left, they would still have to pay you.

[rebdomine]

Does it matter where we work or what kind of business it is? If it's a place where we only work with one other person and we are normally not allowed to leave the person alone for more than 10 minutes, do they still have to give time off to vote?

Can they tell us which half of the shift we can use to vote? I wonder because I can only use the last half since I have no car and that's the only time I can get a ride.

[Pattymd]

To my knowledge, there is no exception for small business, but yes, they can tell you which part of the shift you can take off. They do not have to allow you any more time than it takes you to vote and it can be at the beginning or end of the shift.

What are your regular work hours? The polls in CA are, if I remember right from when I lived there, are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., correct? Or has that changed?

[rebdomine]

Ah okay. Yeah, one of my coworkers just got fired for engaging in an argument with the boss about how they aren't going to allow her time off to vote unless she finds someone to cover her shift and I thought that wasn't very legal.

We aren't out until almost 8pm so if we don't get time off to vote, we don't get to vote. A lot of us have school all morning until we come in at 3pm to start work.

[Pattymd]

But it isn't really the employer's fault that you are in school all morning.

[rebdomine]

But the law REQUIRES that they allow us time off from work to vote if we are unable to vote while off work, they have to allow us 2 hours either at the start or the end of our shift. My employer will not allow us time off to vote unless we can find shift coverage, and if we can't find coverage we can't leave to go vote, so they are breaking the law.

[rebdomine]

If a voter does not have sufficient time outside of working hours to vote at a statewide election, the voter may, without loss of pay, take off enough working time which when added to the voting time available outside of working hours will enable the voter to vote. No more than two hours of the time taken off for voting shall be without loss of pay. (California Elections Code Section 14000)"

[rebdomine]

"If the employee on the third working day prior to the day of election, knows or has reason to believe that time off will be necessary to be able to vote on election day, the employee shall give the employer at least two working days' notice that time off for voting is desired, in accordance with the provisions of this section."

I think 2 weeks' notice is sufficient in accordance with the time off for voting law.

Doesn't matter why we don't have sufficient time off of work to vote, they MUST MUST MUST allow us time off to vote!

[CaLaborLawAttorney]

Go "red" well said.