Rikers Island Detainees Get Help Casting Votes From De Blasio

NEW YORK, NY — New York City will pick up voter-registration paperwork and absentee ballots straight from city jails such as the notorious Rikers Island complex in an effort to help incarcerated voters cast ballots, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday.

The initiative aims to help jailed New Yorkers more easily exercise their right to vote without papers getting delayed by the jails' mail system, the mayor's office said. The city's Department of Correction, the Campaign Finance Board and the Legal Aid Society are all involved in the effort, which was announced ahead of September's statewide primaries and November's general election.

"Voting access must be expanded and protected in our city. That applies to everyone, including people in custody," de Blasio, a Democrat, said in a statement.

New York State law bars convicted felons from voting if they are in prison or on parole. But incarcerated New Yorkers can cast ballots if they were convicted of a misdemeanor or are still awaiting trial for a felony, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

The city's new initiative will let incarcerated voters submit registration forms and absentee ballots directly to staffers, who will make sure they get to the Board of Elections on time, the mayor's office said.

That will help prevent documents from getting caught up in the jails' outgoing mail system, which has security procedures in place that may have unintentionally caused jailed voters to miss crucial deadlines, the mayor's office said.

The Mayor's Office, Legal Aid and the Campaign Finance Board launched voter registration and "Get-Out-the-Vote" drives in the jails on Monday with more than 1,200 posters encouraging detainees to cast their ballots, officials said.

The city also plans to place information about candidates in libraries and set up daily discussions about the voting process with Department of Correction program counselors, the mayor's office said.

"Even though most people in our custody are here only a short time, it is our duty to help them by ensuring that they have appropriate access to the electoral process," Correction Commissioner Cynthia Brann said in a statement. "Reminding the incarcerated that their vote matters is a powerful way of reinforcing their ties to our community and is just as important as the many job training and re-entry programs we offer every day."

The city's initiative is the latest effort to bolster voting rights for New Yorkers who have gotten entangled in the criminal justice system. Gov. Andrew Cuomo in May said he would to consider conditional pardons for the state's parolees that would immediately restore their voting rights.

(Lead image: Voters cast their ballots in New York in November 2016. Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)