Report Shows Lack of Accommodation for Disabled Inmate Voters
SEATTLE — A report released in early August by Seattle-based advocacy group Disability Rights Washington claims the state’s county jails are not doing enough to support the inmate voting process, particularly when it comes to accommodating inmates with disabilities.
Report authors note that specific barriers to voting encountered by many inmates with disabilities include a lack of resources, inaccessible construction and other large-scale policy issues that cannot be adequately addressed by individual inmates using existing grievance procedures. The group contends that both jail administrators and local election officials must systemically address these barriers, and urges quick action to ensure all inmates eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential election will be allowed their fundamental right.
After reviewing jail policies and conducting site visits to each of the state’s 38 county jails, the group concluded that most have no means for helping inmates register to vote or cast ballots. Moreover, as inmates with disabilities may require accommodations and alternative means of voting that are readily available in community polling places (but not available in a jail), this population is disproportionately not voting.
Further, the report states that jail officials must “focus their attention on designing systems within their facilities that meet the unique needs of each individual with a disability. Most jails in this state do absolutely nothing to provide the information, ballots and voting accommodations necessary for the people in their custody to vote. This results in people held in these jails not being able to vote and…disproportionately affects people with disabilities.”
Of the few jails with voting policies, the report found that many staff members did not know about the policies or did not actually implement them; however, exceptions where found in Spokane and Kittitas counties as well as at the South Correctional Entity Regional Jail (SCORE) located in King County. The report noted that the three counties “have policies in place and report actually facilitating voter registration, receipt of ballots while in jail and casting of ballots.”
While the report added that these facilities’ policies are silent on specific accommodations to voters with disabilities, they do also have general policies on providing accommodations to people with disabilities.
Disability Rights Washington was also pleased to see that a lack of established policy and practices was not necessarily an indication that the jail opposed inmate voting and rather could reflect a lack of awareness of common barriers to voting in jail. Authors of the report noted that Island County Jail in Coupeville, which previously had no voting policies, immediately and independently took concrete steps to improve inmate access to voting information and ballots following the group’s visit.
The report ultimately advises jails without voting protocols in place for all inmates, especially those with disabilities, to develop written policies and affirmative practices that facilitate voting activities and to coordinate with local election agencies to make sure an accessible voting machine is available to any incarcerated voter with a disability who could benefit from it. “This includes voters who are blind or cannot read, or voters who cannot otherwise mark or sign their ballots independently,” the report stated.