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HRM: Updates to admin leave for voting

June 9, 2022
Banner: HRM Update.

The Office of Personnel Management recently developed guidance for the use of administrative leave for voting or serving as a poll worker. This is in response to Executive Order 14019, Promoting Access to Voting, signed by President Biden on March 7, 2021.

Eligible Employees

All federal employees are eligible to use administrative leave for voting purposes as long as they have approval from their supervisor.

Eligible Elections

  • You may use it once for each federal, state, local, tribal and territorial election, including primaries and caucuses.
  • You may use it once per election—election day voting or early voting, but not both.
  • Elections do not need to coincide with the federal general election.
  • You may not use it for non-workdays or overtime hours.

Amount of Leave

  • Voting
    • You may use up to 4 hours of administrative leave per election. If it takes less than 4 hours, you may only use the time that you need to vote. You may include travel time to and from your polling location. If you need more time, consider requesting approval from your supervisor to use annual leave, compensatory (comp) time, credit hours or leave without pay (LWOP).
  • Poll Worker
    • You may use up to 4 hours of administrative leave per year to serve as a nonpartisan poll worker or to participate in a nonpartisan observer activity. This includes any training hours that you need. This is in addition to the administrative leave you may use to vote. If you need more time, consider requesting approval from your supervisor to use annual leave, comp time, credit hours or LWOP.

How to Use Leave

  • Request approval from your supervisor. Supervisors should make sure that mission-essential operations are not significantly negatively affected.
  • Use descriptor code (DC)-38 with transaction code (TC)-66 to record your voting hours in Paycheck8.
  • You may submit corrected timesheets if you used any personal leave or LWOP for voting on April 1, 2022, or later.

Resources

Help is available

Open an HR Help case:

  1. Call: 1-877-372-7248, Press 2
  2. Email: hrm_contact_center@usda.gov
  3. Self-Service: ConnectHR > HR Help link

For detailed instructions, visit the HR Help How-to Add a Case Guide.