Should Businesses Allow Voting on the Company Dime? 

By: Jaclyn Zeal

There’s a growing movement of businesses recognizing their role in empowering their employees to participate on election day.

It’s no secret that large swaths of the voting-age population do not turn out to the polls. In 2018, only 51% of eligible PA voters actually participated in the election and according to local businessman Robert Cheetham, increasing voter engagement isn’t just about generating more compelling political candidates. 

“We live in a democracy and people’s work shouldn’t prevent them from casting a vote,” says Cheetham, CEO at locally-based geospatial tech company Azavea, where two hours of PTO is allotted on every election day so employees can go out and vote.

“The cost is minuscule and it’s a symbolic policy that demonstrates we care about our employees’ right to vote. It’s the norm to get in late, leave early, or take an extra long lunch on election day, and doesn’t hinder ability to meet expectations.” 

While Azavea has implemented this policy for the last 15 years, they now partner with the nonpartisan organization Business for America, which seeks to restore trust in democratic institutions. The organization has been partnering with companies to champion their employees’ civic engagement, advocating for voting policy reform, and encouraging businesses to implement strategies to help increase voter turnout.

“No worker should have to choose between a paycheck and being able to get out and vote,” says Joe Petrucci, Pennsylvania State Director of BFA..

“I believe that small businesses play an integral role in our communities,” says Steve Weinberg, Advisory Committee member at BFA who helped grow the Sustainable Business Network, which doubled its membership when he was the co-chair. “Businesses do better when their workforce believes in what they are doing.” 

With campaigns such as “Time to Vote,” which saw participation from 400 companies on a national level (from Patagonia to Walmart) in 2018, BFA’s only state-specific chapter is in Pennsylvania. “Pennsylvania is particularly important because it’s consistently a swing state, and with cities on either side and a vast rural component in the middle, it’s representative of our nation as a whole,” says Petrucci.

What can your local business do to promote voting? Here is an idea.

Offer employees two hours of PTO every election day so they can vote.

In addition to providing PA businesses with innovative resources, such as the new “Ready to Vote PA” campaign that includes a webinar and downloadable toolkit, BFA partners with coalitions to advocate for legislation that seeks to enhance nonpartisan democractic reform. 

Last fall marked a pivotal win for BFA in Harrisburg with the Act 77 legislation that updated PA’s 80-year-old voting bill with a number of reforms, including mail-in ballots, extended deadlines to register to vote and to return their absentee or mail-in ballots, and $90 million in funding for new voting systems.

“We live in a participatory democracy and this is the ecosystem we all operate in,” says Weinberg. “Businesses can and must be a force for good. We need to find ways to do this together, because voting is the most powerful thing we can do right now.”