Do TN State Government employees get time off to vote?

Any person entitled to vote in an election held in this state may be granted paid leave on the day of the election for a reasonable period of time, not to exceed three (3) hours, to vote during the time polls are open in the county where the employee resides. Requests for such leave shall be made to the supervisor before 12:00 p.m. on the day before the election.

If the work schedule of an employee begins three (3) or more hours after the opening of the polls or ends three (3) or more hours before the closing of polls of the county where the employee is a resident, the employee may not take time off under this section.

Recordkeeping: Employee timesheets should be coded as Administrative Leave for Election (ADMEL).

This section applies to all elections for public office, for candidacy for public office, and on questions submitted to the people.

Example: In most elections, the polls close at 7:00 p.m. Therefore, state employees whose normal shifts end at 4:30 p.m. and who have requested to leave early to vote as prescribed above, should be excused at 4:00 p.m. on that date to ensure that they have a reasonable period of time to vote.

Since polls are open until 8:00 p.m. in the Eastern Time Zone, this policy only affects employees in that time zone working a schedule other than 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. Therefore, only employees having less than three (3) hours available between the normal end of their shift and 8:00 p.m., Eastern Time Zone, should be notified of this policy. Otherwise, the policy only applies to employees in the Central Time Zone.

This information is found in Section 3.03 of the Attendance and Leave Manual.  https://www.tn.gov/hr/pr/attendance---leave-manual.html

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