Typically you can only vote absentee if you have some reason why you can't make it to the polls on election day.

In NC, you can vote absentee for almost any reason. My first presidential vote was cast absentee, because I was in college in Chapel Hill and registered to vote in Greensboro. NC's also been experimenting with extended voting. In the 2004 elections I voted a week or so ahead of time. It was at a different spot than my usual polling place, but once I found it I was able to walk in, grab my ballot, and vote with less than a five minute wait. I think it's a lovely idea--unless one of the candidates goes on a naked shooting spree in the Mall of the Americas, odds are ones mind is made up by the time early voting opens.

Paid time off:

§ 17-118. Refusal to permit employees to attend election. A person or corporation who refuses an employee entitled to vote at an election the privilege of attending thereat, as provided by the election law, or subjects such employee to a penalty or reduction of wages because of the exercise of such privilege, is guilty of a misdemeanor.

that doesn't say paid to me. I think that it means that you cannot be penalized for voting, and they have to let you do it, but they don't have to pay your for it.

I might be wrong, but this:

or subjects such employee to a penalty or reduction of wages because of the exercise of such privilege

reads to me like you can't deduct wages for time taken off to vote.

I think OR might've. Not that it matters to me, since I've voted absentee for almost 18 years.

I want Cindy for Grand Poobah of Everything - who's with me?

Back to turducken:

I think that this particular level of overindulgence hasn't really hit the UK yet

I think the UK's had it and gotten over it. If I'm remembering my History of Food: Renaissance Europe class correctly, Ren. era feasts featured things like roast peacock (with the feathers put back on for table presentation) stuffed with goose, stuffed with grouse, stuffed with pigeon, stuffed with thrush, stuffed with finch, stuffed with a quail egg.

Although, maybe the UK hasn't entirely gotten over it...slashfood also educated me about a Scotch Egg, which looks like the Everlasting Gobstopper of breakfast foods. It's a hard-boiled egg wrapped in sausage then rolled in breadcrumbs and deep-fried.

odds are ones mind is made up by the time early voting opens

And if not, you don't have to vote right away.

Count me among the "all for making it easier to vote." Preferably with the paid holiday or more-than-one-day plan.

U.S. Fed policy -- for federal elections, you can either come in as late as three hours after the polls open or leave three hours before the polls close, whichever gives you less time off, paid. Not aware of any policies on state or local elections, but I wasn't able to vote at least once (state primary election) because I had to work late.

And,

It's a hard-boiled egg wrapped in sausage then rolled in breadcrumbs and deep-fried.

Talk about your heart attack on a plate!

Although, maybe the UK hasn't entirely gotten over it...slashfood also educated me about a Scotch Egg, which looks like the Everlasting Gobstopper of breakfast foods. It's a hard-boiled egg wrapped in sausage then rolled in breadcrumbs and deep-fried.

It's even more impressive made out of an ostrich egg.

reads to me like you can't deduct wages for time taken off to vote.

oh, I see where the disconnect it. I was thinking of hourly workers, not salaried. If you are paid by the hour, they don't have to pay you for the time you take to vote. If you are salaried, then they do.

I just got some sort of notice telling me that if I wanted to vote by absentee ballot permanently I would have to do something or other, but I didn't pay attention because I like going to the polls.

There was a movement ten or so years ago, possibly still continuing, encouraging people not to vote as a protest. I can't say I understood it, it seemed to be along the lines of "Don't vote, it will only encourage them", though I'm not certain who "them" would have been. Politicians, I suppose. I only know about it because I applied for a job at a Cheaper! convenience store, and the guy that started that chain also started this movement.

My day is not going according to plan. I have one thing that I want to do today and I can't do it because I can't find my watch. So, do I spend all day looking for my watch, or actually do some of themyriad other things that I could do without it? I'll probably bounce between the two all day.

well, unless the one thing is getting your watch fixed, I say go for the myriad other things.