By C1 Staff
WASHINGTON DC — Voting that went on at the D.C. Jail and a facility where women are housed next door is unique.
Most states and the District of Columbia bar prisoners serving time on a felony conviction from voting, according to the Washington Post. But inmates awaiting trial or serving a sentence for a misdemeanor, an estimated 700,000 people nationwide, are allowed to vote as long as they aren’t barred by a past felony conviction.
Most states, however, don’t actively help these people vote, said Marc Mauer, the executive director of The Sentencing Project, a Washington-based group that advocates for sentencing reform and alternatives to prison.
“In the vast majority of jails there’s absolutely nothing being done to make that happen,” Mauer said.
There are exceptions. Jails in San Francisco register prisoners to vote and coordinate voting by absentee ballot. More than 300 ballots were delivered to prisoners there this year, said Nick Gregoratos, the prisoner legal services director.
Maine and Vermont, the only two states where prisoners never lose the ability to vote, also help inmates cast absentee ballots.