(C) Colorado Newsline This story was originally published by Colorado Newsline and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . People in custody at Denver jail vote in person during primary election • Colorado Newsline [1] ['Lindsey Toomer', 'Quentin Young', 'Chase Woodruff', 'Sara Wilson', 'More From Author', '- June', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline'] Date: 2024-06-19 Jaycin Robinson voted for the first time Tuesday morning. The 19-year-old participated in Colorado’s primary elections. Only he didn’t cast his ballot at a voting center, he voted at the Denver Detention Center. The Denver Elections Division held in-person voting for people in custody at the jail Tuesday, registering them and providing information on candidates compiled by the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition. The Confined Voter Project in Denver started in 2016 with the help of the sheriff’s office, the elections division, CCJRC and the League of Women Voters. “I thought about doing it, but I never really thought it was that important until I actually got to understand what it really meant,” Robinson said about voting. “I was thinking I was gonna be out of the jail when I (voted for the first time), but everything happens for a reason.” Counties around the state will look to Denver as a model as they implement in-person voting ahead of the November general election under a new Colorado law, but Denver has helped people held in the city’s jails vote in person for a few years. Before that, the city helped people in custody mail their ballots in. “I’m always proud to be able to cast my ballot, and as we help folks that are in our custody to understand their responsibility as productive citizens, we hope that that pride that they built today in casting those ballots will carry on when they go back into the community,” Denver Sheriff Elias Diggins said at a press conference Tuesday. Staff with Denver Elections come into the jail to set up voting booths and help eligible voters in custody register and cast their ballots, and Diggins said the jail’s operations aren’t significantly impacted by the process. He said because most of the people held in jail have not yet had a trial or are serving misdemeanor sentences, they retain their right to vote. Lyndreth Wall, a 58-year-old Ute Mountain Ute Tribe leader in custody, said he’s proud that he still gets to exercise his right to vote. He said that while he’s voted many times prior to being in jail, this was his first time he’s voted while in custody. “It’s very important that we have our right to vote, because it does make a difference,” Wall said. “That means the world to people that are incarcerated, because we’re still human beings.” Each person while in custody is issued an ID they use within the jail, which they’re able to bring with them as their form of identification for voting. The sheriff signs off, acknowledging that the voter lives in the jail at the time they voted. Maysa Sitar, Denver’s voter accessibility administrator, said it’s similar to what voters in nursing homes do to meet ID requirements. If someone in custody isn’t a Denver resident, they can still get mailed a ballot from their home county. Otherwise, a ballot that includes only statewide candidates and issues is available for in-person voting in jails. Denver Elections spokesperson Mikayla Ortega said it’s hard to tell exactly what percentage of the jail population is eligible to vote because of how transient stays in the jail can be. Over the last week, Denver has had an average of 1,726 people in custody. Since the start of the year, more than 10,000 people have been released from custody in Denver. The majority of people in jail are there simply because they cannot afford bail, Ortega added. Senate Bill 24-72, which Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed into law at the end of May, requires county sheriffs to designate someone to help eligible voters in jails cast their ballots. The designee is responsible for informing confined individuals of their eligibility and coordinating with the county clerk to set up a temporary, in-person voting center at their local county jail. Voters in jail must also receive information on candidates and measures included on the ballot so they can know who and what they’re voting for. [END] --- [1] Url: https://coloradonewsline.com/2024/06/19/people-denver-jail-primary-election/ Published and (C) by Colorado Newsline Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/coloradonewsline/