Senate Bill S5314

                                
 
BILL NUMBER: S5314

SPONSOR: MAYER
 
TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend the election law, in relation to time
allowed for employees of schools to vote

 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL, IDEA OF BILL:

To align new provisions for time off for voting with the operations of
school districts, charter schools, nonpublic schools and boards of coop-
erative educational services.

 
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:

Section 1 amends subdivision 1 of section 3-110 of the election law
tospecify employees of schools districts, charter schools, nonpublic
schools and boards of cooperative educational services shall be eligible
for up to three hours of time off from work for voting when such employ-
ees do not have four consecutive non-working hours either before or
after work to vote.

              

Section 2 states the effective date.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

New York State has made tremendous advancements this year in expanding
access and opportunity for the public to vote, beginning with Chapter 2
of the Laws of 2019 and more recently under the adopted 2019-20 State
Budget. These measures have encouraged young citizens to register or
pre-register to vote, expanded the hours of voting in primaries, estab-
lished early voting and afforded voters additional time off from work to
vote, among other provisions.

While laudable in its objective, the additional time off to vote for
school employees has the potential to disrupt the instructional day for
students and places a difficult burden on schools to maintain appropri-
ate staffing levels in the classrooms.

This legislation is designed to maintain the intent of the law regarding
employee time off for voting with an alignment of the operations and
requirements of school districts.

 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

New bill.

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.