At today’s Leon County Commission meeting, elected officials voted to make Election Day a paid holiday for all county employees. The proposal is estimated to have a fiscal impact of $18,560 in holiday pay, which County staff reports can be paid for from existing personnel budgets.
At the April 13, 2021 meeting, the Board directed staff to provide an agenda item exploring the option to include Election Day as a Leon County Government employee paid holiday.
Election Day is observed on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in even-numbered years.
Leon County staff notes that many states have declared Election Day a legal holiday, including Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, and the territory of Puerto Rico. Also, other states require that workers be permitted to take time off from employment to vote in elections without loss of pay.
According to the agenda item, the State of Florida has neither declared Election Day a legal holiday nor adopted a law requiring that employers provide paid time off for voting. However, State workers are provided up to one hour of administrative leave for primary, general, or special elections held in their place of residence.
The change will be effective October 1, 2021. However, the first Election Day would not occur until November 8, 2022.
It was also noted that annual holiday schedules for the offices of the Clerk of Courts, Property Appraiser, Sheriff, Supervisor of Elections, and Tax Collector would not be impacted by this change as each constitutional officer is responsible for establishing the holidays for their respective offices.
The City of Tallahassee recently voted to establish Election Day as a paid holiday.
Leon County Votes to Make Election Day a Paid Holiday added by Staff on
View all posts by Staff →
Edward Lyle – I’m with you; and a high percentage of countries (S. Korea, Australia, Belgium) around the world who have better voter turnout than we do. “According to the Pew Research Center, of the thirty-six nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the U.S. is one of nine that votes on a week day, and one of seven that doesn’t designate election day a national holiday (cultureready.org). It’s not about bribing, many of us (especially women) must get children off to day care or school, get to work, can’t get off early to vote, and also must pick up children. Isn’t voting and democracy a priority to our country?
Nothing like buying votes
no
I would rather you use the money on making sure those 100’s of Millions of Voters have a Government Issued Photo ID or DL so they are no longer Suppressed from Voting. That should make the Democrats happy and cost a lot less since there are only about 7 of them that may not have one.
Typical, coming from the woke psychopathic leftists that are the Capital District Kommissars. Their virtue signaling to all things socialism has no limits. Remember folks, anyone with an ounce of critical thinking in the Capital District is in the smallest, true minority. We are surrounded and outnumbered. It’s why the Governor had to nuke these maskhole Branch Covidian Kommissars.
Lol,
Paid holiday, and I bet a good portion will not show up to the polls…
After committing such monumental voter fraud, schemes, double voting, looking up dead voters, planning a massive scandemic to overload with massive bogus ballot boxes one would need a day of rest (at taxpayers expense).
We can’t buy gas… and these morons are trying to create another paid holiday? What a bunch of monumental idiots we have running this county.
“Leon County staff notes that many states have declared Election Day a legal holiday, including Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, and the territory of Puerto Rico.” …………….. Then work with our Governor to make it a State Holiday, or better yet, our President to make it a Country Wide Holiday. Also, how is it just an $18,560 Impact, using my math, at just $10 an Hour per employee, including Benefits, that’s $80 a Day per employee. Divide $80 into $18,560, that comes to just 232 Employees.
Let me see if I understand this…it’s only county employees who don’t have enough time to vote on the any number of weekend days or get to the polls before or after work on the actual election day…everyone in the private sector is able to figure this out but county employees can’t figure it out? Is that what the county commissioners are saying? If they can’t figure out how to get to the polls or if their value of their vote is so low they have to be bribed by giving them the day off, maybe county employees shouldn’t be given the honor of voting.
Go for it!
An increase in available volunteers = more staff to work polling stations = more polling stations requiring ID available to the electorate = no more illegitimate excuses for mail ballots = minimized ballot and election fraud/theft = no legitimate reason to oppose the new Election Protection Laws.
… so… you know… go for it