At Clockwise, our mission is to help the world make time for what matters. One thing that matters for Americans is having our voice heard on November 3rd. This election will be unlike any other, especially since it’s occuring during a global pandemic.
Last week, we offered three ways you can volunteer to support voting rights right from your desk.
This week, we want to cover the benefits to putting a “Voting Hold” on your work calendar.
How a Voting Hold can help
One reason to set up a Voting Hold is that studies show that people who pre-commit to an action are more likely to actually follow through. Scheduling a time to vote on your calendar makes it more likely that you’ll actually vote when the time comes. Plus, scheduling time to vote on your calendar means your colleagues won’t schedule over that time. For more information on precommitment and time blocking, check out What is time blocking?
Don’t feel like you need to spend evening and weekend time voting. While there’s no federal law requiring employers to give employees time off to vote, most states and many municipalities do require that employees have time to go do their civic duty.
The US Postal Service is urging voters to request their mail-in ballots by October 19th, at least 15 days before Election Day, November 3rd.
As discussed in the last post, disinformation campaigners shared inaccurate information on how and when to vote in the runup to the 2016 election. Go ahead now and look up how and when to vote in your city and state. This tool streamlines requesting your mail-in ballot no matter where you live. Keep in mind that your pickup point, hours of operation, and more may change due to coronavirus and local regulations, so keep looking it up as election day approaches.
Rather than just scheduling time on November 3rd, consider scheduling time to request your ballot, mail in your ballot, or hand-deliver your ballot. Some recommend voters hand-deliver their ballot to their pickup point if possible since in the last election states discarded thousands of ballots in the primaries due to signature errors, delivery delays, and sealing issues.
Scheduling a Voting Hold
Once you know when and where to request, mail in, or hand-deliver your ballot, schedule those times in your calendar like any other event. Be sure to factor in travel time, if necessary. To ensure you schedule your Voting Hold in the least-disruptive time slot, schedule it with Clockwise. Once you tell us whether it can move within the day or the week, Clockwise will schedule your Voting Hold to open up the most Focus Time for you and your team.
About the author
Cathy Reisenwitz is the former Head of Content at Clockwise. She has covered business software for six years and has been published in Newsweek, Forbes, the Daily Beast, VICE Motherboard, Reason magazine, Talking Points Memo and other publications.
