At any given time, thousands of Coloradans await trial or parole or serve out their sentence in Colorado jails. With local, state and federal elections, it’s more often than not their time in a jail overlaps with an election. In Colorado, a significant portion of the jail population retains their right to vote, as Coloradans in jail are usually awaiting trial or serving a misdemeanor charge, according to Kyle Giddings, civic engagement coordinator at Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition.
However, having the right to vote while in jail and being able to use it are often two different things. CCJRC is working to change that this legislative session. Giddings told Law Week CCJRC is working with state Sen. Julie Gonzales on a bill that would require in-person voting events at all jails or detention centers across Colorado, excluding immigration detention centers.
In-person voting at jails in Colorado isn’t a completely novel concept.
“Denver is starting to be recognized as this national model of how to do in-person voting inside of jails, and so we kind of realized that, ‘Hey, this is how it should be done,’” said Giddings. “We’ve been doing in-person voting inside of Denver since 2020. For some crazy reason, we decided that was a great time to launch in-person voting. We’ve done in-person voting for every single election since then inside of the Denver County Jail and the [Downtown Detention Center.]”
The data on turnout shows the success. In the 2023 elections, the Denver elections division found 51% of voters who registered during a DDC or county jail event cast a ballot, surpassing the 33% of Denver residents at large. Additionally, 80% of DDC voters and 60% of county jail voters were either newly registered or needed updates to their voter records, according to a press release from the Denver Sheriff Department.
The bill comes as the nation gears up for the 2024 election, and Giddings said he hopes the program would launch in time for the 2024 election.
“Is it going to happen? I don’t know,” Giddings told Law Week. “But our hope is that individuals who are confined to a jail or detention center would be able to vote in the presidential election. We are currently doing stakeholding meetings with the county clerk and recorder association as well as the sheriffs to make a game plan and make sure that their voices are heard in this process to make sure that we’re not just going over that.”
Part of this game plan is making sure to bring in stakeholders from across the state, and Giddings added CCJRC wants to make sure rural Colorado is seen and heard during the process.
Giddings is hopeful for the program and told Law Week CCJRC expects to see a big bump in ballots turned in if the program is launched. Giddings said it’s important for those in the justice system to have a voice in that system while they’re in it.
While CCJRC is working with Gonzales to introduce the bill, Giddings said he’s pretty confident more people will sign on. He hopes the bill will be a bipartisan one, and will keep up the tradition of Colorado as the gold standard of voting rights.
“This would be the first-of-its-kind-in-the-nation kind of legislation,” said Giddings. “Colorado would be the first state in the nation to require in-person voting in all of their jails.”
But Denver isn’t alone in the nation when it comes to providing voting access in jails. Giddings pointed to Chicago’s Cook County and Washington, D.C. as other examples of this type of program.
“Chicago has really set a lot of good standards for how to do in-person voting, and we’re excited to take some of their models and continue that trend here in Denver, in Colorado and across our great state,” said Giddings. “Washington, D.C. is doing in-person voting. They have a really interesting program and we’re taking some of their stuff and trying to apply it too. Because they have the individuals that are currently incarcerated becoming the election judges too and helping run the elections in the jail. So we’re trying to figure out how to do that in Denver because that’s something we really want to do.”
While CCJRC is exploring that option, Giddings said the bill mainly creates the infrastructure for jail-based voting in Colorado. Notably, the bill would allow candidate information into jails, as currently it’s difficult for incarcerated individuals to gain access to candidate information, according to Giddings.
Major party candidates could submit digital copies of their information, and jails could then distribute the candidate information to the individuals, enabling them to educate themselves on candidates. Giddings said CCJRC did something similar in Denver, creating a nonpartisan voter guide that was approved and sent to inmates.
“We’ve seen a lot of success, and seeing the personal impact on a lot of the people in Denver, who got to have their voice heard and be seen as a citizen and how much it meant to them,” Giddings told Law Week. “So we’re really excited for it.”