Jailed voters can swing elections if they know and can exercise their rights
newsdepo.com
A new report released by the Prison Policy Initiative outlines a different kind of voter suppression than has typically made headlines this election season: the de facto disenfranchisement of people incarcerated in local jails. According to PPI, an overwhelmiJailed voters can swing elections if they know and can exercise their rights
A new report released by the Prison Policy Initiative outlines a different kind of voter suppression than has typically made headlines this election season: the de facto disenfranchisement of people incarcerated in local jails. According to PPI, an overwhelming majority of the 746,000 people detained in U.S. jails at any given day are legally eligible to vote but are often barred from casting their ballots due to structural obstacles and misinformation. As opposed to the felony disenfranchisement that renders many people incarcerated in state and federal prisons legally ineligible to vote, those in local jails have largely retained their right to vote because a majority of them—nearly 75%—are being detained pretrial and thus have not been convicted of any charges. Further, people in jail who have been convicted are typically only serving sentences on misdemeanor charges. In all but seven states, these low-level offenses do not pose a barrier to one’s voting eligibility. Read more