Federal Employee Voting Leave: 2025 Rules, Requests, and Hatch Act

If you work for an executive branch agency, federal employee voting leave gives you up to three hours of paid administrative leave to cast your ballot on election day. It isn’t automatic. Your supervisor decides whether to approve it, and the deciding question is whether you already have a reasonable chance to vote outside your work hours.

Who Qualifies

The benefit is for executive branch employees on an established part-time or full-time regular work schedule who are actually scheduled to work on election day. If the election falls on your regular day off, you’re expected to vote on your own time. Intermittent employees without a set schedule are excluded from administrative leave under federal law.¹

Eligibility rules are consistent across agencies, though your department may layer its own procedures on top of OPM’s governmentwide guidance.

How Much Time You Can Get

OPM guidance sets the ceiling at three hours, and the leave is limited to the hours actually needed to travel to your polling place, wait in line, vote, and return. If an hour covers it, an hour is all your agency should approve.²

The Outside-Hours Rule

This is what most requests turn on. If the polls in your jurisdiction are open at least three hours either before or after your scheduled shift, you’re generally expected to vote in that window instead of during work time.³

Say your shift runs 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and the polls in your area are open 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. That gives you two and a half hours after work and an hour before. Whether that’s “reasonable” depends on your commute and expected wait times, but many supervisors will conclude you can vote on your own time. Employees most likely to get voting leave are those with long commutes, shifts that hug polling hours on both ends, or assignments in areas known for long lines.

What Changed in 2025

The current framework is more restrictive than the rules in place from 2022 through early 2025. Under prior guidance tied to Executive Order 14019, employees could get up to four hours of administrative leave for voting and a separate four hours for non-partisan poll worker service, with coverage that extended to early voting and mail-ballot drop-off. Executive Order 14148, signed January 20, 2025, revoked EO 14019, and OPM rescinded the expanded guidance memoranda (CPM 2022-05 and CPM 2024-18).² The poll worker leave provision was eliminated and has not been replaced.⁴ To serve as a poll worker now, you’ll need to use annual leave, compensatory time, or leave without pay.

Early Voting and Absentee Ballots

Don’t assume voting leave covers early voting or mail ballots. Under current OPM guidance, your agency should grant early voting leave on a scheduled workday only when:

You’ll be unable to vote on election day because of agency mission activities such as temporary duty travel, and you can’t vote by absentee ballot or during early voting on a non-workday.
Early voting hours are the same as, or longer than, election day polling hours, in which case the standard outside-hours rule still applies.

The guidance does not authorize administrative leave to mail an absentee ballot or drop it in a box. Employees on alternative work schedules whose regular day off falls on election day should not change their schedule solely to create a voting leave opportunity.²

How to Request It

Give your supervisor advance notice, ideally as soon as you know you’ll need time. Come with three pieces of information: the election date, your polling location’s hours, and a realistic estimate of the round trip from your workplace. That travel estimate is what justifies the specific block of time you’re asking for.

The formal request goes on OPM Form 71 (Request for Leave or Approved Absence) or your agency’s digital equivalent. Administrative leave isn’t a pre-printed category on Form 71, so mark “Other Paid Absence (Specify in Remarks)” and write in the remarks that you’re requesting administrative leave to vote, along with your polling location and the election date.⁵

Once your supervisor gives preliminary approval, enter the request in your agency’s Time and Attendance system using the code for excused absence. That ensures the hours are recorded as paid administrative leave and not charged against your annual leave. Check your Leave and Earnings Statement afterward to confirm nothing was deducted by mistake.

When Your Agency Can Say No

Voting leave is discretionary. A supervisor can deny it if you have enough time to vote outside your work hours or if your absence would interfere with agency operations. OPM doesn’t define “interfere with agency operations” tightly, so agencies have real room to weigh staffing, deadlines, and coverage.²

If you’re denied and think the call was unreasonable, your recourse depends on your status. Bargaining unit employees can typically file a grievance under their collective bargaining agreement, which can lead to binding arbitration.⁶ Non-bargaining unit employees can raise the issue through their agency’s administrative grievance process or HR. Either way, you can use annual leave or, if your agency allows, adjust your schedule to make the polls.

The Hatch Act While You’re on Voting Leave

Federal employment adds a wrinkle private-sector workers don’t face. The Office of Special Counsel treats employees on excused absence, including voting leave, as off duty for Hatch Act purposes, so the on-duty ban on partisan political activity doesn’t apply while you’re out voting.⁷

Some Hatch Act restrictions apply no matter what your duty status is. You may never:

Use your official authority to influence an election.
Solicit, accept, or receive political contributions (with narrow exceptions for certain federal labor organization activities).
Run as a candidate in a partisan election.
Pressure anyone with business before your agency to engage in or avoid political activity.

Those come from the Hatch Act itself and apply at your desk, at the polls, or at home.⁸

A practical caution: while off duty at the polls, you can wear campaign apparel, post political opinions on personal social media, and express partisan views. The moment you step back onto federal property or log into government systems, those activities become prohibited again. Walking back into the office still wearing a campaign button is technically a violation.

What Happens If You Misuse It

OPM Form 71 carries a certification warning that falsification may be grounds for disciplinary action up to removal.⁵ If you claim voting leave and use the time for something else, your agency can retroactively mark the absence as AWOL. AWOL isn’t a disciplinary action on its own, but it sets the stage for one. Depending on your record and the circumstances, consequences can range from a written reprimand to suspension to termination.²

Supervisors face exposure too. Administrative leave cannot be authorized to let an employee do partisan campaign work, and a supervisor who grants it for that purpose is violating federal rules alongside the employee.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 6329a – Administrative Leave
2
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Fact Sheet: Administrative Leave
3
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Excused Absence for Voting
4
Federal News Network. At Some Agencies, Federal Employees Face Tighter Limits on Leave to Vote
5
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Request for Leave or Approved Absence
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 7121 – Grievance Procedures
7
U.S. Office of Special Counsel. Hatch Act FAQs
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 7323 – Political Activity Authorized; Prohibitions