Assessing feasibility of voting from jails

More than 700,000 people are currently held in custody in local jails. The vast majority – many of whom are low-income and people of color – are legally permitted to vote in local, state, and federal elections. Whether being detained pre-trial or currently serving a sentence, they face misunderstandings about who can vote, as well as other policy and structural barriers to access.

While absentee voting is often offered as a workaround for in-person jail-based voting places, there are numerous reasons why it falls very short of fostering enfranchisement.

Recently, several counties across the U.S. have begun establishing polling locations inside jails. In 2019, Illinois passed critical legislation to facilitate a polling location inside Cook County Jail. The Prison Policy Initiative cites six additional county jails that have offered in-person voting, including in Washington, DC; Denver, CO; Harris County, TX; Los Angeles, CA; Joliet, Ill, and most recently, Dallas County, TX.

In partnership with the Alameda County Public Defenders’ VOICE program, and supported by a grant from Scholars Strategy Network, the Possibility Lab spent a year exploring the challenges and solutions involved in jail-based voter registration and jail-based voting. Drawing on data collected through a variety of methods, the team has formulated key considerations for jurisdictions that want to explore the possibility of polling places within jails.