USA Today reports that "a growing number of U.S. companies are pledging to give workers time off to vote in the presidential election this November, an effort that’s gaining steam despite the government’s reluctance to make Election Day a federal holiday."
In addition to Starbucks, which made its announcement last week, "Walmart says it will give its 1.5 million U.S. workers up to three hours paid time off to vote. Apple is giving workers four hours off. Coca-Cola, Twitter, Cisco and Uber are giving employees the day off."
Also, the story says, "Six hundred companies, including Lyft, Airbnb and Paramount, have signed on to ElectionDay.org, which asks companies to give employees time off to vote or distribute information on voting, including how to obtain main-in ballots. It is not clear how many of those 600 are allowing time off versus distributing voting information … Time to Vote, another corporate voting initiative, was formed ahead of the 2018 elections by Levi Strauss and Co., PayPal and Patagonia. A little over 400 companies participated last time; Time to Vote says 700 have joined so far this year."
- KC's View:
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I've long believed that as a nation, we ought to have Election Weekend … it would start at 12 midnight eastern time on Saturday and run to 11:59 pm eastern time on Sunday … and the entire country would vote during the same 48 hours.
That would be especially appropriate this year, when people are going to be cautious about lining up at the polls because of the pandemic. Me, I'm going to get my ballot by mail and will drop it off at the local board of elections as soon as possible.
