Facebook to give employees paid time off to vote, staff voting stations

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Friday the company will offer employees paid time off to vote and to staff polling stations for the November presidential election.

Facebook follows a handful of other tech companies, including Apple, Uber and Twitter, that will allow employees to take time off to vote or work the polls. In the United States, Election Day takes place on Tuesday, November 3.

“We’re less than two months away from the US elections, and we are seeing a massive shortage of poll workers to staff voting stations. Shortages can lead to hours-long waits at the polls, which makes it harder for people to participate in the democratic process,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post Friday. 

“This recruitment drive is part of Facebook’s larger voting information campaign, with the goal to help 4 million people register and vote,” Zuckerberg said. “Priscilla and I have also personally donated $300 million to non-partisan organizations supporting states and local counties in strengthening our voting infrastructure.”

Facebook is also launching a prompt at the top of users’ News Feeds that encourages people to sign up to work the polls. “We’ve also offered free ad credits to every state election authority so they can recruit poll workers across our platforms,” Zuckerberg said. “California has already started running these ads and several more states are joining in the coming days.”