Is Election Day a Federal Holiday? Map Shows Paid Leave by State

As Election Day approaches, voters across the country will be considering not only which candidate to support but also how they’ll manage their work schedules around a trip to the polls.
The race is tight, with Vice President Kamala Harris maintaining a narrow lead over former President Donald Trump nationally, according to most aggregators. Both candidates are still competing for the few thousand votes that could swing the seven key battleground states and secure them the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.
A total of 468 seats in the U.S. Congress—33 in the Senate and all 435 in the House of Representatives—will also be up for grabs on November 5.
Despite the gravity of this election and the democratic benefits of a large voter turnout embraced by both sides of the political spectrum, no federal law requires voters to be provided time off to cast a ballot.
As a result, states have decided whether to consider Election Day a public holiday, during which government offices will be closed and government employees will be given time off, and whether to require employers to provide their workers with paid time off.
However, these laws vary widely, with some states offering paid leave, others simply designating Election Day as a public holiday, and others providing no protections.
Drawing on a report from the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), Newsweek created a map showing how each state treats November 5.
Nineteen states and the District of Columbia do not treat Election Day as a public holiday nor mandate employers provide paid time off for voting.
According to MAP, citing the voting-eligibility analysis conducted by the United States Election Project, 37 percent of the U.S. will have to cast their vote for a candidate outside of their normal working hours if they have not already done so through an absentee or mail-in ballot.
Nine states—Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Virginia—treat Election Day as a public holiday but do not require employers to provide paid time off.
Seventeen states, comprising 36 percent of the national, voting-eligible population, require employers to provide paid time off for voting but do not treat Election Day as a holiday.
Only five states—Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New York and West Virginia—treat Election Day as a holiday and require employers to provide paid time off.
Do you have a story we should be covering? Do you have any questions about this article? Contact [email protected].