As the November elections get closer, a group of eligible voters might be left behind. The reason: They are in jail.
Marc Mauer, a senior adviser at the Sentencing Project, said the vast majority of people in jail are eligible to vote since they usually consist of two kinds of people, those awaiting trial who have not been convicted and can’t post bail, and those who have been convicted of a misdemeanor but not a felony. The Sentencing Project is a national organization that does research and advocacy around criminal justice policy seeking to reduce the number of people in jail.
According to the Sentencing Project, of the 745,000 people incarcerated as of 2017, nearly two-thirds or 482,000 were being held pre-trial because they were not able to post bail. Of the 263,000 who were serving a sentence, the vast majority had been convicted of a misdemeanor and were eligible to vote.
Because of COVID-19, the Sentencing Project expects voting access for more than 700,000 people in jail to be compromised for the 2020 general election.
"There is a great deal of ignorance about this issue," Mauer said. "Many of the jail officials are not aware that these people are legally eligible to vote. Many of the defendants themselves don’t know that."
Mauer said there are also other issues related to voting in jails, including the fact that there is a high turnover rate in the jail population, with most people who are arrested being released in only a few days. He feels jail and election officials, as well as community members, need to help and make sure inmate’s votes are counted.
He said jail officials should make sure inmates understand and know they are still able to vote and how to go about it. In some jurisdictions across the country, election officials go into the jail and set up polling places for those eligible to vote.
In Georgia, a new law was passed last year making it easier for those in jail to vote, but it comes with a new set of issues.
Under the law, election officials are allowed to mail absentee ballots to a person in custody at a jail or detention center, and it allows absentee ballots of voters in jail to be delivered by a jail employee or a family member.
Richmond County Board of Elections Executive Director Lynn Bailey said that before the law change, there was no way for those in jail to receive a ballot and vote.
"We realized in 2019 it did exclude people who were incarcerated awaiting sentence or who had not been convicted for one reason or another who were certainly entitled to vote," Bailey said. "The law was changed to allow us to mail a ballot to a different in-county address under that particular set of circumstances."
Although the law was changed, Bailey said it still might be very difficult for someone in jail to vote. First, a voter needs to find a way to request an application while in jail and send in the application. Then the voter will need to find a way to get the ballot back to the election office.
"The plan is there, the method is there. Even though the plan and method are there, people need to be forward-thinking with the process," she said.
Bailey said the best way to ensure those in jail get a chance to vote would be through a program with the sheriff’s office. She said her office has had discussions in the past, before the law change, but haven’t had any since.
"We have spoken to them about getting people registered to vote and we have spoken to them before about absentee ballots, but the problem was, before this law went into effect, we didn’t have any authority to mail the ballots to people who were incarcerated or any other county address other than the address the person was registered," she said.
The sheriff’s office stated that it has posted a notice in every pod of the jail with instructions on how can inmates request a voter registration form. Those who requested one were given one to complete and mail.
According to the notice, any inmate eligible to vote can request a voter registration application through the detention center’s kiosk system. The application will be completed by the inmate and placed in the outgoing inmate mail.
In the notice, the sheriff’s office states it is not responsible for getting an absentee ballot delivered to an inmate or to request the ballot on behalf of the inmate. To request a ballot, an inmate would need to request one from the elections office, have it mailed to their home address and have either a friend or family member bring the ballot to the detention center.
Bailey said one misconception she often hears is people think once they have been arrested, regardless of the crime, they are no longer eligible to vote. Another misconception is that once convicted of a felony, you have to do something out of the ordinary just to get on the voter roll.
"In the state of Georgia, if you have been convicted of a felony and have completed your sentence, meaning you are off parole/probation, you pay all your fines, you are automatically eligible to register to vote again," she said.
Mauer said it tends to be the bigger cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago that have programs in place to ensure those in jail are able to vote. He said a lot of reform campaigns focus on felony disenfranchisement laws rather than on those still eligible to vote.
"There has been a great deal of activity around people with felony convictions who are ineligible to vote and there has been a lot of reform campaigns around that but very little attention paid to this population that is legally eligible to vote," he said. "There is not very many places that have taken on this issue yet."
The Link LonkSeptember 07, 2020 at 08:48PM
https://www.savannahnow.com/news/20200907/voting-in-jail-not-easy-for-many-who-are-eligible
Voting in jail not easy for many who are eligible - Savannah Morning News
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