The effort follows the placement of a polling station in Harris County Jail, the first of its kind in Texas.
The Lew Sterrett Justice Center on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022, in Dallas, TX.Activists are pushing for a polling site in the Dallas County Jail by the upcoming November election. But it’s unclear whether that will happen - not all officials are on board, or even sure if it’s possible.“The Dallas Sheriff’s Office has standard operation procedures in place to make sure people charged to our care can vote,” said spokesperson Jasmyn Carter.
“I’m having enough problems just trying to get the staff to run the jail,” said Commissioner John Wiley Price, who chairs the jail population and maintenance committees. “That is less than last on my list.”“Some of the biggest concerns may be around logistics, maybe within the jail, which really prefaces to, is this something we want to do,” said Carvell Bowens, a lead organizer with Texas Organizing Project. “But this is something we have to do. We can’t just stand by.
“A lot of times when we talk about voting rights, almost always incarcerated folks are left out of that conversation,” said Dania Hindi, DFW field manager with Texas Rising. “Sometimes it’s because people don’t know that even incarcerated people have the right to vote, and that’s why this work is important.”
County Judge Clay Jenkins said he supports the polling site because “people don’t plan ahead of time to go to jail,” and if someone finds themselves in a cell after the deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot, they’ve just lost their opportunity.Effectively, they are being disenfranchised, he said.
“We would be willing to work with the sheriff to try to add this location for the upcoming November election,” he said in an email. “However, we do not have enough information about the logistics of the jail and other potential limitations to know for sure whether doing so would be practical.” Some county officials question the degree of impact the site could have in Dallas given initial turnout numbers in the Harris County Jail. They point instead to the need to expand voter participation throughout the city.
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