Voting Made Easier for Rikers Island Inmates And 7,000 in New York City Jails

Thousands of inmates in New York City jails including Rikers Island could soon get the opportunity to vote while locked up after City Council passed two bills to monitor and support detainee voting.Now on-track to become law, the bills would compel the New York City Department of Corrections to actively support eligible inmates exercising their right to vote.One of the bills would require the Department of Corrections to report on voting activity in New York City jails to the Council, including the demographics of new voter registrations and how many absentee ballots are distributed among the incarcerated population. Because there are no polling places registered inside the city’s jails, detainees must vote by mail. As of October 21, New York City jails held an average of 6,610 people each day.The second bill would require Department of Corrections employees to check absentee ballot envelopes for errors and give inmates the opportunity to fix them before the ballots are mailed.After passing the council Thursday afternoon, the bills now head to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s desk. He may either sign them into law, or, as Hizzoner appears to prefer, he can ignore them, in which case the bills will take effect in one month.Both bills passed with a veto-proof majority. Councilmember Vickie Paladino, who voted nay on both, was the only lawmaker to oppose the bill to require regular reports on incarcerated voter activity.Ms. Paladino did not address the voting bills in the Council Chamber Thursday, but she posted stern warnings on social media earlier in the week about both “decarceration,” progressive policy making aimed at reducing lockups, and the high stakes at the polls.“People have no real concept that we’re one election away from Democrats essentially dissolving the republic,” she wrote on X after Thursday’s votes.“Americans have a deep normalcy bias based on 160 years of near-continuous success, prosperity, and stability. Nobody thinks it can end, not really. But Democrats want to end it all to seize permanent power, and young progressives want to burn it all down after that,” Ms. Paladino continued. “We have not been in a similar place nationally since 1861. Wake up.”For New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who introduced the reporting bill, Intro. 797-A, the current state of affairs in the city’s jails evokes similar dark days in America’s history.“As a majority of the population in Rikers is black and brown, it is hard not to hear the echoes of Jim Crow in this effective disenfranchisement of thousands of potential voters,” he told the council Thursday.“We would not accept the systemic disenfranchising of eligible voters anywhere else in the city, yet it goes largely unseen and unchallenged in our jails,” Mr. Williams’ bill passed 48-1, while the bill to require DOC to review ballot envelopes, Intro. 786-A, introduced by Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers, passed 42-7. “The right to vote does not end at the doors of our City’s jails, yet too many eligible New Yorkers continue to face barriers that prevent them from fully participating in our democracy,” Ms. Brooks-Powers said in a statement. Most jail inmates — a population largely composed of individuals convicted of misdemeanors or awaiting trial — can vote. Under a 2021 New York state law, only convicted felons who are currently incarcerated lose their voting rights, according to the state Board of Elections. Despite being eligible, “only a fraction of the incarcerated population in the jails vote,” Mr. Williams told the council as they prepared to vote on the bills Thursday. The logistics of getting inmates registered, distributing ballots to them, and then collecting and reviewing their votes falls to the Board of Elections and the Department of Corrections. While the BOE normally notifies individuals whose absentee ballots are rejected and gives them the opportunity to try again, the same courtesy is rarely afforded to the few inmates who try to vote, Mr. Williams said.The bills will proceed to the mayor’s desk alongside other legislation passed Thursday.Those include the council’s landmark bill to ban the horse-drawn carriages that have populated Central Park’s promenades for 168 years and the Community Opportunity for Purchase Act, which would give certain nonprofits priority when distressed properties hit the real estate market. The mayor has signed only one bill since taking office on January 1 — legislation to permit the outdoor dining that became popular during COVID year-round — though the council has passed almost a hundred this year. If a bill sits on Hizzoner’s desk for one month without either a signature or a veto, it lapses into law. Both of Thursday’s jailhouse voting bills are likely to become law without the mayor’s signoff, having passed with more than the 34 votes needed to make them veto-proof.

Voting Made Easier for Rikers Island Inmates And 7,000 in New York City Jails

Voting Made Easier for Rikers Island Inmates And 7,000 in New York City Jails

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