All Minnesota Employers are statutorily obligated to provide employees, “the right to be absent from work for the time necessary to appear at the employee’s polling place, cast a ballot and return to work” without a pay or PTO deduction or any direct or indirect interference. Minn. Stat. §204C.04. This applies to any time of day and to exempt and non-exempt employees scheduled to work during the time the polls are open. Violation is a misdemeanor.
Is this potentially a citizen’s “senior skip day?” No. The statute rests on a rule of reasonableness regarding the scheduling of time off, and the amount of time off. The employer has the right to be told when the employee will be gone and ask that absences be coordinated (but can’t so require). An employee who just doesn’t show up for work on November 7th can’t count on a statutory free pass.
How can an employer handle a suspected abuse? Preemptive, pro-active measures are likely not the best path to follow since warning and rules could well look to be prohibited indirect attempts to thwart the statutory time-off requirement. But after-the-fact, carefully handled individual investigations of suspected abuse can be consistent with the statute and its rule of reasonableness. The previous version of the statute allowed for the morning off and that may be a reasonable rule of thumb.
Takeaway: An employer suspecting employee abuse, especially wide-spread abuse, of the paid time off to vote statute can, after the fact, determine if the employee(s) actually complied with the statutory rule of reasonableness. But proceed cautiously given the statute’s prohibition against indirect interference. Advice of legal counsel would be particularly helpful when the employer seeks to make sure election day doesn’t become defection day.
