Democracy is good for business.

Corporate America has a critical role to play in expanding access to the ballot box. Companies must support every employee’s right to cast their ballot safely and successfully, whether on or before election day.

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Participating companies commit to these vote-friendly policies:

Company policy should apply to employees voting on Election Day, employees who choose to vote early in-person, and employees dropping off an absentee ballot.
The time it takes to vote is always unpredictable, especially with changes to polling locations and unfamiliarity with dropbox locations. The best policy here will not be time-bound but will take into account the many challenges voters face each election cycle.
If your company has offered hourly policies in previous election cycles, the hours offered this year should be extended, and should apply to early voting periods as well as Election Day.
In order to accommodate both Election Day and early voting options, you may consider offering a certain number of “civic hours” that may be used at any time to vote.
If your company has an unlimited PTO policy, institute a “no meetings” day on Election Day.
Ensuring that employees have the education and information they need to vote is an essential function of any corporate strategy, including information on how to register, voting methods, and relevant deadlines.

Round out your strategy

Companies can adopt a number of additional practices to encourage their employees to vote, remove work-related barriers to the process, and foster a celebratory culture of civic engagement.

Make sure that all employees have the information and resources they need to register to vote, aiming for 100% registration among eligible employees.
Celebrate, encourage, and incentivize voter registration through company-wide drives and competitions.
Provide information, resources and tools to ensure any employee who is eligible to vote by mail has requested their ballot.
For some employees, access to a printer may be an obstacle in completing the application request process. Similarly, obtaining postage may also be a problem. Companies can help cover these gaps for their workforce.
With more employees voting by mail or voting in-person during early voting, it may seem less important to observe Election Day as a holiday, but in fact the opposite is true. There may still be many employees who need to vote on Election Day or drop off their absentee ballots. For those who are able to vote before Election Day, there are myriad opportunities for them to support their own community members on the day itself.
Giving Election Day off as a holiday for your workforce allows them to support and cheer on others as they exercise their civic duties, whether serving as poll workers, providing rides to the polls, volunteering for voter protection, or offering childcare support for Election Day voters and poll workers.
Democracy doesn’t take a year off. There are important down-ballot races every year, and companies can lead the way by establishing Election Day as a civic holiday for federal, state and local elections to create a culture of voting and participation for years to come.
➜ Meaningful policies will go beyond what’s legally required. Think expansively about how your company can support your workforce when it comes to voting, and think expansively about your workforce itself, setting appropriate policies to meet the range of needs for full-time, part-time, salaried, seasonal, hourly employees, and contractors.
➜ Serve as an ambassador to your colleagues and other businesses by sharing your company’s commitment to Electionday.org, and encouraging them to do the same.
➜ Donate to Vote.org to support our year-round voter engagement work.
➜ Sign on to Vote.org’s Business Statement on Anti-Voting Legislation.
➜ If your company has a corporate PAC, commit to forgo all corporate PAC contributions to any state or federal lawmakers who vote to restrict voting access. Take the pledge here.
➜ To learn more about voting-related legislation nationwide, check out this tracker from the Voting Rights Lab.