Every year, our state disenfranchises eligible voters when they are incarcerated in our jails and
houses of corrections. That happens both when we incarcerated people on felony convictions -
stripping them of the right to vote - and when we incarcerated people pre-trial or on
misdemeanor convictions, even though those citizens maintain the right to vote on paper. That's
known as de-facto disenfranchisement: in other words, state-sanctioned voter suppression.

An Act to Protect the Voting Rights of Eligible Incarcerated People (S.474 / H.836), filed by Sen. Adam Hinds and Reps. Chynah Tyler and Liz Miranda, would create a system long overdue to provide citizens behind the wall with meaningful access to the ballot by doing the following:

• Require sheriffs to provide all eligible voters ballot applications, voting materials, and a private place to vote
• Require sheriffs to facilitate voting, including timely return of applications and ballots
• Ensure sheriffs partner with community leaders and organizations to support participation
• Ensure municipal, in-person polling locations are available in jails in the most populous counties
• Ensure eligible incarcerated voters’ ballot applications are not rejected by elections officials
• Improve registration and participation for returning citizens
• Provide data and reporting so that incarcerated people, advocates, organizers, and Bay Staters with loved ones behind the wall can assess the scale of the problem and the efficacy of the solution.