The 470,000 Potential Voters Most Likely To Be Disenfranchised Next Election

Jailed voters “have the most direct vantage on how local elected officials — judges, prosecutors, sheriffs — are actually doing their jobs,” said Dana Paikowsky, a jail voting expert at the Campaign Legal Center, a legal advocacy organization. “From the perspective of democratic accountability, this is one of the most important segments of our electorate.” Emergency absentee ballot laws in many states require election officials to help people vote who are injured or hospitalized in the weeks or days leading up to an election. That same logic should apply to voters who are put in jail late in a campaign season, the Campaign Legal Center and partner organizations argued in a recent Ohio lawsuit.

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