Time to Vote — Supporting Employees and Increasing Voter Participation

Voter turnout in the U.S. is remarkably low among countries in the developed world, and one of the common reasons that people give for not voting is that they are too busy with the demands of life and work.

For the 2020 elections, voter participation also faces very specific challenges:

• With the COVID pandemic, the stakes for removing barriers to voting have become amplified.
• With the pressing, overdue need for racial equality, it has become clear that people of color are disproportionately affected by voter suppression.

We at Advantage Reserve are acutely aware that our communities and our democracy depend on voter participation, and we are making the commitment to ensure that our employees can be ready and prepared to vote in this year’s elections.

Advantage Reserve has joined a coalition of hundreds of U.S. companies committed to ensuring every worker has time to vote. We have signed onto Time to Vote, a coalition of businesses that has the singular, nonpartisan goal to increase voter participation.

So far in 2020, more than 700 companies have joined Time to Vote, and more than 200 companies have joined in the last two months alone, demonstrating the increased momentum of the movement.

Major companies that have joined the Time to Vote movement include Bank of America, Coca-Cola Company, Dell Technologies, Expedia, Levi Strauss, Nike, Salesforce, Target, Tripadvisor, Uber, ViacomCBS, Visa, and many more.

(To see a full list of companies that currently are members of Time to Vote, click here.)

We believe that Advantage Reserve’s involvement in Time to Vote reflects the heart of our corporate values — we truly care about our employees’ lives outside of work, and we care about our community and world in which we conduct business.

Voting is a civic responsibility that we take very seriously, and a central part of our company culture is continuous investment in the growth of our employees.

We want our people to be fully engaged in our local and global communities, and supporting voter participation encourages each person to take responsibility for his or her self-development and well-being.

Since I started this company in 2007, I’ve had the chance to spend time with all of our team members and many of their families. We come from different backgrounds and different cultures. Our employees at AR are dedicated, personable, and friendly people, and I know that we all want what’s best for our friends, our loved ones, and our communities.

In my leadership role, I have an enormous opportunity to empower our employees — to make sure we have the tools for living our best lives and contributing to the broader world.

The Time to Vote movement aligns with our company’s values and mission to support inclusion and diversity. And I believe that making the pledge to voter participation is one of the essential components for promoting racial equality and opportunity for all communities.

Here are some of the actions we are taking Advantage Reserve:

• posting information that outlines the importance of voter participation
• providing unbiased ballot information, including education on voter registration and the election process
• providing a range of on-site and online instructions on how to vote, information on locations where to vote across the multiple counties where we live, and information on options to vote by mail
• time off and flexible schedules during polling hours

I’m very proud that we’re taking these important actions to make it easier for our team members to vote. The nonpartisan movement of Time to Vote is a unique illustration of how a unified business community can address the critical issues that are affecting all of us right now.

For more information about Time to Vote, please visit www.maketimetovote.org.