Unlocking the Vote: A Nationwide Effort to Restore Voting Rights for Those Held in US Jails

In Chicago, there was an unusual polling station for the first round of the mayoral election. Everyone that came to vote was wearing beige clothes and the security was there to keep people from getting out, not from coming in.

Tykarri Skillon, a first-time voter, finished studying the list of nine candidates and found people who shared his views on jobs and housing affordability. Then he voted and was taken back to his prison cell in Cook County Jail with other voters.

Someone who is 25 years old and waiting to go on trial for a weapons charge is part of a group that has trouble with voting. People doing time in prison are not allowed to vote, but people waiting in jail or who are serving sentences for minor crimes do have the right to vote. However, they can often find it difficult to use this right in many places within the United States.

The Cook County Jail in the USA houses more than 5,500 prisoners and is one of the biggest jails in the nation. Advocates for voting rights have been working with local government to give these people a chance to vote. Other cities such as Denver, Texas, Los Angeles, and D.C. are also doing this. Giving inmates a chance to vote is a new way of protecting their rights within criminal justice matters.

Skillon said that he feels great to have a right to vote and give his opinion on who should lead the city. He had many candidates to choose from, including current mayor Lori Lightfoot. Unfortunately, people didn’t like how she was handling crime in the city, so she ended up coming third in the election. In the end, two other Democrats made it onto April 4 runoff.

A survey from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics said that a lot of people were locked up in jails around the United States. Out of these, 451,400 people had not been convicted yet and they still had the right to vote. This is because the U.S Supreme Court said so in 1974 when hearing a case from New York called ‘O’Brien v Skinner’.

Even though it’s legal for inmates and detainees to vote, some voting rights advocates argue that this doesn’t always happen because certain rules can be hard to follow. The Prison Policy Initiative listed three main issues in its 2020 report – registering can be difficult due to mail-in ballot deadlines or voter ID laws, not all detention centers qualify for absentee voting and lots of people move in and out of jails a lot.

This year in Tennessee, a new bill was introduced to remove one of the obstacles someone might face if they tried to vote by mail. Senator Jeff Yarbro from the Democratic party is sponsoring and supporting this bill because he wants everyone to have the same rights when it comes to participating fully in a democracy. He said that no individual should be restricted from voting unless there’s a valid reason for doing so.

In Harris County, Texas (which includes Houston), most of the 10,000 people who are in jail haven’t gone to trial yet. In 2019, the sheriff’s department made it possible for them to vote at a polling place instead of just by mail. This has been possible during the last two election cycles.

In 2017, a group called the Houston Justice Coalition started ‘Project Orange’ which helped lots of people in jail figure out how to vote. People in jail used to have to do all the work themselves – like checking if they’re registered and getting an application for voting by mail. But Project Orange made it easier.

In-person voting has many advantages. If you want to vote through mail, you need to request it by April 25th for the May 6th election. People who are booked after that date cannot get a mail ballot. In-jail polling places have machines available for detainees, staff members, and the public so all of these people can vote. During last November’s election, 528 people checked in to vote at this place – detainees, employees, and members of the public.

In California, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has set up programs to make sure that people who are held in jail (pretrial detainees) know how to register and vote. The staff also helps these people get information about the different candidates and topics being voted on. To do this, they work with organizations like the League of Women Voters.

Starting in 2020, the department and the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk have come together to create a program to allow voting in two jails. In 2024 this program plans on expanding to all eight county jails. Dean Logan said that up to 11,700 people could take part if it goes countywide which other counties might be able to replicate.

Logan said that people are paying attention to see if voting centers can offer enough support, equipment and resources for in-person voting.

Sheriff Tom Dart said that it can be tough to help people in jail feel powerful and see things from a different perspective. He thinks having them take part in elections is one way to do that.

The person said that a good way to understand somebody is to let them make decisions. However, not every decision you make will work out.

In 2019, the law in the state said that jails must do things in order for people who have been arrested but haven’t been convicted of anything yet to be able to vote. Smaller jails have to figure out ways for those people to vote by mailing ballots instead of having polling places set up.

The jail authorities organize classes to help inmates and detainees understand how the voting process works, from understanding why people vote in certain elections to watching debates between candidates. Furthermore, they have become really informed about the electoral process; motivating a lot of them to show up and participate in different kinds of voting activities.

According to the sheriff’s office, about 1,500 prisoners in the jail voted for the first time during Chicago’s mayoral election. The Chicago Board of Elections set up booths and a big machine for collecting ballots in an area at the jail called “the chapel,” which is usually used for religious activities and concerts.

A few guards were watching as half a dozen election staff helped people to register their votes. One of these voters was Twenty-year-old Tony Simmons, who filled out his ballot while twelve other people waited in the next room. Only four of them were allowed at the polling station at once to ensure that everyone stayed safe.

Simmons is waiting for a trial about the burglary and robbery he did. He saw some ads on the jail’s television talking about being tough on crime, but he thought that crimes should still go down. When he was asked what kind of candidate he voted for in the elections, Simmons answered: “The ones who are more relaxed when it comes to laws and handling crime.”

Skillon, a first-time voter who is currently going to trial for a weapons charge, thinks that each vote is important and can change things. He believes that even if others might feel like their decisions don’t matter, one vote still makes a huge difference.

The news source Associated Press was supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation while reporting on democracy. Associated Press is responsible for all its content.