Incarcerated voters in Denver jail cast ballots for 2024 election
The Denver Elections Division held in-person voting for people in custody at the jail Wednesday, registering them and providing information on candidates and ballot issues compiled by the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition. Voters also receive a nonpartisan voter guide from the League of Women Voters.
In Colorado, people in custody on pre-trial status are eligible to vote. So is anyone serving time for a misdemeanor conviction. People with felony convictions lose their right to vote only while they are serving time for that felony conviction, and they regain their right to vote once their sentence is complete.
Kyle Giddings, civic engagement coordinator at the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, worked as an election judge in the jail on Wednesday. He said many of the people he talked to had no idea they would be able to vote while in custody.
“We’re running into people that are first-time voters, that never knew they had the right to vote until today, and that is always an empowering thing,” Giddings said. “They’ve been incredibly grateful, and I think people are just really passionate about making sure their voices are heard in their communities, and we see it every single time we come through.”
https://coloradonewsline.com/2024/10/30/incarcerated-voters-denver-jail-2024-election/
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Worked on THIS (as 'legal secretary,' first job after college, before law school
McDonald v. Board of Election Comm'rs, 394 U.S. 802 (1969)
Argued:
November 19, 1968
Decided:
April 28, 1969
Syllabus
U.S. Supreme Court
McDonald v. Board of Election Comm'rs, 394 U.S. 802 (1969)
McDonald v. Board of Election Commissioners
No. 68
Argued November 19, 1968
Decided April 28, 1969
394 U.S. 802
Syllabus
Appellants are qualified Cook County electors who are unsentenced inmates of the Cook County jail awaiting trial. They allege that Illinois' failure to include them among the classes of persons entitled to absentee ballots violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court granted summary judgment for appellees holding that extending absentee ballots to those physically incapacitated for medical reasons constituted a proper and reasonable classification not violative of equal protection.
Held: Illinois' failure to provide absentee ballots for appellants does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. Pp. 394 U. S. 806-811.
(a) While classifications "which might invade or restrain [voting rights] must be closely scrutinized and carefully confined," a more exacting judicial scrutiny is not necessary here, since the distinctions made by Illinois' absentee voting provisions are not drawn on the basis of wealth or race, Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U. S. 663, and there is nothing in the record to show that Illinois has precluded appellants from voting. Pp. 394 U. S. 806-808.
(b) A state legislature traditionally has been allowed to take reform "one step at a time," and need not run the risk of losing its entire remedial scheme (here absentee voting) because it failed to cover every group that might have been included. Pp. 394 U. S. 809, 394 U. S. 811.
(c) Since there is nothing to show that the judicially incapacitated appellants are absolutely prohibited from voting, it is reasonable for Illinois to treat differently the physically handicapped. Pp. 394 U. S. 809-810.
(d) Constitutional safeguards are not offended by the different treatment accorded unsentenced inmates incarcerated within and those incarcerated without their counties of residence. P. 394 U. S. 810.
277 F. Supp. 14, affirmed.
Page 394 U. S. 803
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https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/394/802/