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Empowering Workers to Be Voters This Election Day

Many business owners are making sure their employees have no excuse to not vote on Election Day.

While most businesses will expect their workers to clock in on Nov. 8, almost 300 tech firms are giving their workers the day off with pay, The Washington Post reports

"It creates pressure across the board for more companies to do that in places where their employees maybe aren't as likely to vote," says Jim Pugh, founder of the political data firm ShareProgress. "The more we can have this be a norm within the corporate space, the more it's going to push good civic corporate behavior.”

That list of firms is mostly smaller companies, but some large firms include Spotify, About.com and the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia.

The idea that led to the firms giving their employees Election Day off started with Hunter Walk in July and tweets he sent out. A former Google employee who became a venture capitalist, Walk urged companies to carve out time for their employees to vote Nov. 8. But in a matter of hours, dozens of firms promised to give their workers the entire day off.

While Walk’s efforts have been praised, political scientists question how much of an impact the move will have in getting more people to the polls. That’s because most firms that have joined Walk’s cause are more likely to have workers who are already engaged voters and who suffer little consequence from taking time to vote, they say.

"I would say that it is probably negligible, just because generally speaking, these tech workers are salaried workers," says Ernest McGowen, a visiting assistant professor at Georgetown University who specializes in political behavior. "It's hourly workers, particularly in lower-wage jobs, where that kind of thing is more pressing—it's more of a reason people don't turn out.”

As the CEO of Lovely Bride, small business owner Lanie List did something to erase concerns that could have kept her hourly employees from voting, AOL.com reports. In the summer she decided to make Nov. 8 a paid vacation day and then went a step further by launching “Election Day with Pay,” an effort to get other business owners to follow her lead. List runs the firm's New York City flagship store. 

“There is a pretty deep divide between the presidential candidates, and it's more critical than ever that young people are better enabled to vote since they will have to live with the aftermath,” List says. Though List has targeted small businesses, she wants to see large companies take action too.

“As an owner of [a] company myself, I know entrepreneurs have the greatest ability to be nimble and write our own destiny,” List says. “I know it’s late in the game for large companies, but I’ve reached out to some public company business contacts and they are definitely taking the idea to their boards.”

While a number of ad agencies have not gone as far as the tech companies in giving workers the entire day off, they are taking other measures to make it easier for their employees to vote, Digiday reports

Firms such as Edelman, Day One, AKQA and Walton Isaacson, are offering employees a range of options from working remotely to opening up later. Edelman, for example, has required that all of its 14 U.S. offices to open at 11:30 a.m. on Nov. 8. “A delayed start is in some ways a small change, but we are hopeful that the added permission and a little extra time will help our staff—especially working parents and those traveling longer distances to the office—find the time to cast their vote,” says Russell Dubner, president and CEO of Edelman U.S.

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