Facebook to Employees: Here's Time Off, Go Work Those Polls

With shortages of poll workers looming before the election, one big tech company is stepping up to help fill that gap. Facebook executives told Axios this week that it will be offering its employees additional paid time off so they can become poll workers if they so choose, which would include time spent at training sessions and at voting sites. Starting Saturday, Facebook users 18 and over will also see alerts on their app directing them on how they, too, can become poll workers in their individual states.

"We're less than two months away from the US elections, and we are seeing a massive shortage of poll workers to staff voting stations," Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Friday online post. "Shortages can lead to hours-long waits at the polls, which makes it harder for people to participate in the democratic process." The Facebook CEO, who says that nearly 500,000 poll workers will be needed for the election, added that the company has also offered ad credits to election authorities in each state so they can use the social media platform to recruit more poll workers. Axios notes these initiatives are all part of Facebook's efforts "to shore up election integrity on and off the platform." (More Facebook stories.)