Whether or Not You’re Able to Vote in Jail May Come Down to Where You’re Incarcerated – By Madeleine Carlisle and Lissandra Villa (TIME) / Oct 1 2020
In late July, the Arizona Coalition to End Jail-Based Disenfranchisement, a local voting advocacy organization, mailed a small, white postcard to each person detained at the Apache County Jail in St. John’s, Arizona. It read: “BEING IN JAIL DOES NOT AFFECT YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE,” and provided information about voter eligibility and how to request a ballot from a corrections officer.
A couple of days later, according to two men incarcerated at the jail, a corrections officer asked detainees to return their postcards. One of those men says the officer explained that his commander had asked for the postcards back. A third says that at least two other detainees told him that a corrections officer had taken their postcards as well.
“I just handed it to them, surprised,” says Christian Nasse, a 66-year-old detainee at the jail. “And just put it in the memory bank that it was odd — another intimidation thing.”
Nasse, who is being held at the jail pretrial on multiple charges, says by the time his card was taken, he had already requested his ballot. But when he received it, a different corrections officer warned him that he could face more charges if he voted with a prior felony conviction—something that is true in some cases but didn’t apply to Nasse, who is eligible to vote. Nasse said he eventually decided not to cast a ballot because he didn’t want to risk any more legal problems. When asked whether he felt intimidated into making that decision, Nasse said yes.
Continue to article: https://time.com/5895219/voting-jail-2020-election/
