Massachusetts needs to play catch up on paid time off to vote

For a state that claims to be a bastion of democracy, Massachusetts continues to lag behind places like Texas, Tennessee, and South Dakota in assuring that workers not only have the time to vote but don’t have to pay a financial penalty for doing so.

Elections come and elections go. Too often the most remarkable number is how few people came out to vote. This year’s Boston City Council race brought a whopping 15 percent of city voters to the polls. The mayor’s race two years earlier brought out 32 percent of registered voters. Only 51 percent voted in the statewide election in 2022 that sent Maura Healey to the Corner Office.

In any number of other nations — where turnout is considerably higher — election day is a national holiday or voting takes place over a weekend. But here, well, Tuesday is just another work day.

Casting a vote on election day, though, shouldn’t mean worrying about an hour or two of pay. So with the next presidential primary election right around the corner on March 5, the Massachusetts House last week approved a bill that would allow employees paid time off on election day for in-person voting. The move came in an informal session of the House — which requires unanimous consent at this late date in the session — and only about 90 minutes after its release by the House Ways and Means Committee.

So, yes, a hasty move in a Legislature not otherwise known for its speed.

“I’m not going to be against any incentive to voting,” Secretary of State Bill Galvin told the editorial board. “But if it’s going to pass, I’d suggest to the Senate that they might want to clean it up.

“It’s very poorly drafted,” he added.

As drafted the bill would apply to only state and municipal elections. Galvin raises the question, “What about a special election for the US Senate or House?”

And “you could argue that the presidential primary is a Massachusetts presidential primary, but you could also argue it’s not,” he added.

But there’s nothing that’s not fixable in the bill, which requires employees to give their employers three business days’ notice of their intent to take time off at the beginning or the end “of the employee’s regular working hours.” And it would task the attorney general with drafting rules and regulations for its administration and enforcement.

Last time around it took a pandemic to bring Massachusetts into the world of 21st-century voting with passage of the VOTES Act, making permanent no excuses mail-in voting and early voting. And there is precedent: current law already allows workers in some industries to take time off for voting — but it is narrowly defined as those employed in a “manufacturing, mechanical, or mercantile establishment.”

It is, Galvin noted, “clearly archaic,” as anyone might guess from the language.

When it comes to paid time off, Massachusetts remains behind the curve nationally, with 23 states and the District of Columbia already mandating paid leave — most in the range of one to three hours.

Some employers have already voluntarily joined an effort started in 2020 by Boston developer Peter Palandjian to sign up major corporations — some 400 companies nationwide have already committed to the effort — in support of A Day for Democracy. [Globe CEO Linda Pizzuti Henry was a charter member of the effort.] Palandjian testified on Beacon Hill last October in support of a voting day proposal similar to the one just passed by the House.

And while some retail businesses, like Patagonia, voluntarily closed their stores to give employees paid time off to vote or work at the polls in 2020, the current House bill is not without its opponents. Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, criticized the hastiness of the House action and said it would add to the bureaucratic “piling on” that businesses “are so frustrated about.”

Massachusetts voters are at long last fortunate to have options like mail-in voting and early voting — most of which include a weekend option. And the state is fortunate to be home to a number of employers who have voluntarily joined the effort to make sure their workers have time to get to the polls.

But for a state that claims to be a bastion of democracy, Massachusetts continues to lag behind places like Texas, Tennessee, and South Dakota in assuring that workers not only have the time to vote but don’t have to pay a financial penalty for doing so.

With the next presidential primary just around the corner, it’s time Massachusetts joined this growing national effort.