Just has stepped in to provide what no other group locally has done: ensure that people incarcerated in the Broome County Jail can vote.
Persons in jail do not lose their human and civil rights: almost all have voting rights that are denied by county and state practice. Most in the county jail, awaiting trial can vote: you can vote if you are a US citizen, 18 or older, and aren’t in jail because you are curently convicted for a felony or on parole for a felony. See the attached trifold brochure from the League of Women Voters which explains in detail the voting rights and procedures for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated persons. Additional background: a briefing on disenfranchisement of those in jails–over 700,000 persons–by the Sentencing Project is here. Time Magazine has a short story here.
JUST has a voting rights project, and we will mail in explanatory materials and the forms to register and apply for an absentee ballot, along with a post-office-pre-stamped envelope to mail the forms to the person’s county board of elections.
If you know of someone in the Broome County jail who might want to register and vote, send us their name and we will mail the materials to them.
Send us the name at: justice.southern.tier@gmail.com
The deadlines to register 2022’s primary elections are:
- July 29 – last day to postmark voter registration form
- 8 – last day for Board of Elections to receive absentee ballot application by mail
- 23 – last day to postmark absentee ballot
The deadlines for the November 8, 2022 general elections are:
- 14 – last day to postmark voter registration form,
- 24 – last day to postmark application or letter of application for absentee ballot
- 8 – last day to postmark absentee ballot