Relates to voting rights and access for incarcerated individuals

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Zellnor Myrie says this is needed

Thousands of American citizens detained in New York jails each year have not lost their right to vote, yet their access to voting is severely limited, if not obstructed entirely by the circumstances of their confinement. This jeopardizes civil rights and undermines the state's interest in maintaining correctional policies that foster rehabilitation and community reintegration Prison Policy Initiative, Eligible, But Excluded: A Guide to Removing the Barriers to Jail Voting, October 2020, https://bit.ly/44S8D5B). This population includes otherwise-eligible citizens who are detained pretrial or for lesser offenses and who have not lost (or did not lose) their right to vote as a consequence for their alleged offenses. These citizens have just one way to vote-by absentee ballot. Yet, they are effectively being disenfranchised because of the absence of a voter access program coordinated and facilitated by elections and corrections officials. Currently, without such a program for this population, the responsibility for voter access is illusory or amorphous at best, fall- ing to local sheriffs, corrections staff, and civic groups, rather than the bipartisan officials who administer local elections. This has led to limited, variable and unpredictable access year-to-year and facility-to- facility. The lack of statewide uniformity leaves an unaccountable void filled by ad hoc arrangements, misinformation about eligibility, and infringed rights. Modern state regulation is needed to adequately and uniformly safeguard these civil rights and ensure the integrity of elections. Notably, people of color are dramatically overrepresented in American jails and prisons. Racial disparities are particularly stark for Black Americans, who make up 38% of the incarcerated population despite representing only 12% of U.S residents (Prison Policy Initiative, Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2023, March 2023, https://bitiv/3HPeZZ4 This legislation codifies the right to vote for citizens in correctional facilities and local correctional facilities who have not lost the right to vote (i.e., who are not currently incarcerated for a felony conviction) and provides local officials with authorization and guidance to facilitate timely access to at least one method of effective and secure voter registration and ballot access for all such eligible persons. This policy provides interlocking voter access options for election administrators, who need to serve voters in urban and rural localities, and who are provided with discretion and flexibility to meet local needs with limited resources. The act sets a statewide standard of minimum access that enhances and clarifies the residual duty on local officials to provide and facilitate basic voter registration and absentee ballot access for eligible citizens detained in less populous correctional facilities or local correctional facilities and citizens detained outside their home county, reducing the logistical barriers to ballot access that can unjustly suppress these legitimate voters. The Election Law's Bipartisan Absentee Ballot Collection Program (EL § 8-407) for large nursing homes and congregate facilities is extended to apply to the largest correctional facilities and local correctional facilities in New York's most populous counties. Election officials are authorized to proactively coordinate this program with facility leadership, who must cooperate to ensure the eligible citizens confined at each covered facility have a fair opportunity to timely register and vote. Alternatively, local election officials have the option to deploy a poll site at the populous facilities in their county, so eligible confined citizens and facility staff can convenient- ly vote. To account for the significant differences in scale and complexity in meeting the diverse needs of detained or confined eligible citizens in New York City, this bill prescribes heightened duties for New York City, including: 1) additional time for voter regis

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.