At a recent Nonprofit Working Group gathering, members flagged a recent law change that needs to reach COCPA members who are employers. If your organization has employees in Colorado, there's a quiet but meaningful update to the state's voting leave law that took effect this June — and it changes how you'll need to handle leave requests for every election going forward, not just Election Day.

What Changed

Previously, Colorado's job-protected voting leave only applied on the actual day of the election. As of June 1, 2026, employees can take up to two hours of paid, job-protected time off on any day that voter service and polling centers are open — not just Election Day itself.

That's a real expansion. Colorado's voter service and polling centers typically open well over a week before Election Day, so employees now have a much wider window in which they're legally entitled to request leave to vote.

How the Old Rule Worked

For context, the prior standard (established under HB18-1033) was narrower: employees could take leave to vote, register to vote, or obtain a ballot or identification, but for general, primary, or coordinated elections, that leave could only be taken once, on a day that polling locations were open — with employers able to deny the request if the employee already had three consecutive hours off work while polls were open.

The new rule keeps that same denial exception, but stretches the window in which the leave right exists — from a single day to the entire early voting and polling period.

The Practical Mechanics

A few details matter for how you administer this:

• The two-hour cap is per election, not per day. Employees get up to two hours of paid leave to use once during the eligible window, not two hours on each day polls are open.
• Advance notice is still required. Employees must apply for the voting absence before the day of the election for which they're requesting leave. Your existing request process likely still works — just make sure it accounts for the longer window employees might reasonably use it in.
• The 3-hour denial rule still applies. Employers may deny a leave request if the employee already has three or more consecutive hours off while the polls are open — for example, someone whose shift starts late enough or ends early enough that they'd naturally have time to vote doesn't trigger the paid-leave obligation.
• Because polls are open longer now, that denial exception may apply less often. With a wider window of eligible days, employees have more flexibility to pick a day that doesn't overlap with a shift where the 3-hour exception would apply — which functionally strengthens their ability to claim the leave.

Why This Matters for HR and Payroll

1. Update your leave policy language now. If your handbook or leave policy still describes Colorado voting leave as an "Election Day only" benefit, it's out of date and could create confusion — or a compliance gap — for the next election cycle.
2. Retrain managers who approve leave requests. Frontline supervisors are usually the ones fielding these requests, and they need to know the eligibility window has expanded well beyond a single day.
3. Adjust payroll coding if needed. If your timekeeping system has a specific code or rule tied to "Election Day" leave, confirm it's flexible enough to apply across the full early-voting period.
4. Remember this is Colorado-specific. For employees working in a different state, this law doesn't apply — though that state may have its own paid voting leave requirements worth checking separately. Multi-state employers should treat this as one line item in a broader 50-state voting leave compliance check, not a one-off fix.

Bottom Line

This isn't a dramatic rewrite of employer obligations, but it does meaningfully widen the practical window during which Colorado employees can exercise a paid, job-protected right to vote. The compliance risk isn't in the substance of the rule — it's in outdated internal policy language and manager training that still assumes "voting leave" means "Election Day leave." With Colorado's next major election cycle approaching, now is a good time to close that gap.

To learn more about the Nonprofit Working Group, contact Stacy Svendsen at stacy@cocpa.org.