Why 6 Boston tech companies are offering time off to vote

by Justine Hofherr
November 4, 2016

Americans might not turn out at the polls for a number of reasons tomorrow. Maybe it's apathy, frustration or laziness — this showed in the 2014 electoral cycle, when voter turnout hit a new low in the U.S.

This year promises to be different, however, with Americans showing heightened interest (and anxiety) over the election’s outcome. So, it’s no surprise that many employers want to make sure their workers have no excuses. In fact, over 300 companies have joined together to give their employees time off on November 8. The Take Off Election Day campaign recognizes employers that are giving their employees this time off to vote, and counts nine Massachusetts companies among its supporters.

Here are some local tech companies making sure their workers exercise their civic duty.

 

What they do: ANSWR’s SaaS machine learning platform is focused on creating better consumer technology experiences by eliminating the need for tech support. Its cloud-based support experience management platform also helps companies capture and share data with its team and customers.

Why employees get Election Day off: “Our Election Day Off policy is grounded in our belief that voting is the single most important responsibility of citizens in a democracy. Regardless of who our employees choose to vote for, it is critical that they are given the time necessary to understand the issues and vote.”— Chris Dolan, CTO

Location: Boston

 

What they do: Forget paper ballots. Clear Ballot aims to remove delay and error from traditional voting systems. Its technology handles all ballots at once by scanning them and storing them in an election library that’s secure and intuitive.

Location: Boston

 

What they do: Flybridge Capital Partners is a venture capital firm that’s focused on seed and early-stage investments in technology companies. They’ve invested in companies like AppNeta, BitSight Technologies, DataXu, MongoDB and Jibo.

Why employees get election day off: "Like many in the tech community, we care deeply about civic involvement, particularly on issues that impact the innovation ecosystem.  This year's Presidential election is one of the most important of our generation when it comes to policies and issues so we wanted to ensure employees have the opportunity not only to vote, but to participate through volunteering on election day.  We also encouraged our portfolio companies to make sure their employees could get out to vote and are proud of how many are doing so." -Kate Castle, Vice President of Marketing

Location: Boston

 
 

What they do: Sentenai helps companies store and make sense of data received from sensor networks with its real-time feedback and modeling systems.

Location: Boston

 

What they do: Smack’s mobile app is a real-time group messaging social network that connects teens to friends nearby in schools or interests groups.

Location: Boston

 

What they do: Wise Systems is an enterprise software solution that helps companies make quick delivery decisions, taking into consideration factors like customer time windows and traffic. Wise automatically dispatches schedules to drivers and its software recalculates schedules in real-time as things change.

Location: Cambridge

 

Photos via Shutterstock

Do you offer your employees time off to vote? Let us know or tweet us @BuiltInBOS

 

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