Last Tuesday February 13 formally arracó the time of elections 2024with special contests held in different parts of Queens and The Bronx, and beyond the electoral environment, the day served for defenders of the inmates of the Big Apple prisons to call for the Municipal Administration to give the green light to new reforms that increase prisoners’ access to voting processes.
This was requested by members of the Vote in Jails Coalition of the City of New York in a demonstration in which they urged the Board of Elections (BOE) and the municipal Department of Corrections to invest resources to guarantee that all inmates of the Rikers Island Prison and other prison centers in the Big Apple can cast their votes and they will be counted.
As part of the requested reforms, protesters asked that the City Board of Elections provide voters with Rikers Island the same opportunity to vote in person through the same mechanism that the law provides to nursing home residents. To this end, they asked that electoral inspectors be appointed to preside over the portable voting machines so that registered voters can vote directly.
Likewise, they requested that the Department of Corrections invest more resources during the election season to help voters register to vote, request, receive and return absentee ballots, as well as implement a voter education program.
Cesar Ruiz, Associate lawyer of the organization LatinoJustice PRLDEF urged municipal authorities to take the claims seriously in order to build true access to electoral processes for all.
“It’s no secret that the conditions people face at Rikers are deplorable; a person in his custody could die before exercising their fundamental right to vote, which is an absolute shame,” the defender said. “We join our partners in calling for humane conditions at Rikers Island and unrestricted access to the polls.”
Rigodis Applingan attorney with the Legal Aid Society’s Community Justice and Special Litigation Unit, stressed that the ability of all eligible New Yorkers to meaningfully participate in local, state, and federal elections is a fundamental right for all citizens, regardless of whether they are deprived of their rights. freedom, so their right must be guaranteed.
“However, people in Rikers Island and other city jails have been repeatedly hindered or outright denied access to the ballot boxes due to the lack of meaningful action taken by the BOE and DOC to reform the problematic and cumbersome way ballots are cast and counted. ballots in their facilities,” said the lawyer. “These institutions must commit to implementing new policies to ensure that all eligible voters have the opportunity to make their voices heard on this and every election day in the future.”
Darren Mack, co-director of the Freedom Agenda organization which ensures the rights of inmates, emphasized that voting is a right that must be protected and urged measures that go in that direction.
“Rikers Island It is full of people who have already been failed by all levels of government and now have their access to the vote severely limited,” Mack said. “We need to remember that the vast majority of people in city jails still have the right to vote. It is the responsibility of the Board of Elections to protect that right and provide the means for every person at Rikers to exercise it.”
Robert Gangi, director of the Police Reform Organization Project, joined the claims and asked that municipal authorities take measures to guarantee that access to voting is given to those confined in New York prisons.
“Almost all New Yorkers locked up in Rikers are presumed innocent and have the legal right to vote. But in practice they have been deprived of their rights due to the negligence and incompetence of the responsible government agencies,” the activist said.
2024-02-22 00:28:00
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