Some prison advocates consider voting registration and the right to vote keys to a successful re-entry. For newly released people, enfranchisement seems to be a philosophical thing, writes David Sell for the Vera Institute. Sell, who has been incarcerated for 28 years in New York, asks his fellow prisoners about recent New York state legislation that gives back the vote to formerly incarcerated people who were convicted of a felony. Roughly half say that they would use their new right to vote, Sell wrote. “They finally feel like they are part of a bigger picture and are no longer silenced.”
In jails, some people technically can still vote, because they are legally innocent. And in a separate piece, Vera reports that, though U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that pre-trial detainees are able to vote, “few will be able to exercise that right,” because almost no jails have voting booths. In 2022, the Prison Policy Initiative could locate only seven jails across the whole country that offered in-person voting. Also, many people who are detained pretrial are not even aware that they can still vote.
Some places in the United States are working to expand voting access in local jails. In June, Colorado became the first state to mandate that election officials offer voting services in jails and detention centers. And in 2019, Illinois required counties with populations of over three million to establish polling places in their jails. After Chicago’s Cook County Jail established a polling location, the jail saw a 40 percent turnout in the 2020 general election. In the June 2022 primary, the jail’s polling station reported the highest voter turnout in the 24th Ward, which covers 20 precincts in Chicago.
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart told Vera that the jail’s polling place helps people maintain productive ties to the outside world. “In all seriousness, what better way [is there] to get a person committed to their community?” he said. “They’re voting for the people that are running their community.”
Yet even those who are convicted and imprisoned keep tabs on the election, writes Sell, who was shocked earlier this year to hear a man yelling, “The debate is on!” to everyone on the gallery. “In a split second, it became quiet. I couldn’t believe it — silence in a prison often consumed with chaos.”
Though interest in the election started as a form of entertainment, it has gotten serious, especially for those interested in resolving some of the root causes of incarceration, Sell writes. “Mental health issues thrive amongst us; as do addiction, poverty, inflation, and broken families. Although we are physically isolated from society, these cells, bars, walls, and barbed wire do not shield us from information on the politics or social issues that plague our communities.”
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