There is no federal requirement that employers give workers time off to vote. Twenty-eight states and D.C. require it, and twenty-one of those states plus D.C. require that time to be paid.

In the rest of the country, a company’s policy decides whether an hourly worker can get to the polls without losing wages.

Walmart, Amazon, Home Depot, Target, Starbucks, Albertsons, and Kroger employ millions of retail, warehouse, grocery, and food-service workers. On Tuesday, November 3, many of those workers will be on the clock while polls are open. A conflicting work or school schedule was the leading reason people stayed home in the 2022 midterms.

Working people are expected to keep these companies running and still find a way to vote around the schedule those companies set. Working-class communities feel that squeeze first. People who want unchecked power also benefit when voters lose faith that showing up matters, including through election denialism that treats certified results as optional.

These companies have the resources to guarantee paid time off to vote on Election Day. They also have a responsibility to say publicly that elections are real and that attacking them attacks the public.

Tell the CEOs of Walmart, Amazon, Home Depot, Target, Starbucks, Albertsons, and Kroger to give every employee paid time off to vote on Election Day and to speak out against election denialism.