# You're In Jail Awaiting Trial (But Not Convicted). Do You Get To Vote?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-in-jail-awaiting-trial-but-not-convicted-do-you-get-to-vote/749157>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 16, 2016, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-in-jail-awaiting-trial-but-not-convicted-do-you-get-to-vote/749157 "2016-03-16T13:42:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2016, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-in-jail-awaiting-trial-but-not-convicted-do-you-get-to-vote/749157/1 "2016-03-16T13:42:46Z")

</div>

Let’s say someone with no priors is in jail on Election Day. He’s awaiting trial for [insert heinous crime here]. He has not yet been convicted, for this crime or any other crime.

Does the jail have any obligation to accommodate him so he can vote?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2016, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-in-jail-awaiting-trial-but-not-convicted-do-you-get-to-vote/749157/2 "2016-03-16T13:51:40Z")

</div>

If you are in jail and aren’t barred from voting due to a past felony, you are entitled to vote. Most prisons don’t make it easy, though.

> [@](#):
>
> Most states and the District of Columbia bar prisoners serving time on a felony conviction from voting. 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.

More info in the full article here:

> **[D.C. jail helps inmates vote, a rarity nationwide](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2012/11/06/dc-jail-helps-inmates-vote/1685161/)**
>
> The voters at this Washington polling place were all dressed alike in orange jumpsuits. When they finished voting, they went back to their cells.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2016, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-in-jail-awaiting-trial-but-not-convicted-do-you-get-to-vote/749157/3 "2016-03-16T14:23:16Z")

</div>

> [@HeyHomie](#):
>
> Let’s say someone with no priors is in jail on Election Day. He’s awaiting trial for [insert heinous crime here]. He has not yet been convicted, for this crime or any other crime.
> 
> Does the jail have any obligation to accommodate him so he can vote?

So far as I know, any such person would be eligible for an absentee ballot in any state.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2016, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-in-jail-awaiting-trial-but-not-convicted-do-you-get-to-vote/749157/4 "2016-03-16T15:13:14Z")

</div>

I knew somebody in that situation in a Kansas county jail. He was able to request and cast an absentee ballot, but the jail mailroom confiscated the return envelope the elections office supplied; he had to use an envelope purchased at the jail commissary. (No idea how the elections office regarded that nonstandard return.)