Letter to Harris County, TX on Jail Polling Location Initiative

Date

On September 23, 2019, CLC and Demos submitted a letter to Judge Lina Hidalgo and the Harris County Commissioners Court urging them to move forward with their plan to turn Harris County Jail into a polling location and provide voting machines to the eligible voters incarcerated there. Harris County Jail is one of the largest in the nation, incarcerating an average of 9,000 people daily. Most of Harris County Jail's population is held in pretrial detention or serving misdemeanor sentences, which means they retain their eligibility to vote under Texas law. However, Harris County provides no means by which many of these voters can cast their ballots. Our letter discusses Harris County's obligation to provide ballot access to these eligible voters and urges them to move forward with this initiative.