Durbin Leads Group of Senate Democrats Pressing Justice Department and Bureau of Prisons on Voting Access for Incarcerated People

Letter

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“In the three years since President Biden issued an Executive Order on ‘Promoting Access to Voting’ (Executive Order 14019), BOP has made progress toward fulfilling the Justice Department’s commitment to promoting voting access … In response to this directive, BOP has initiated a number of policy changes, such as providing informational handouts, to ensure that individuals in custody understand their eligibility to vote and ability to access the process for casting a ballot. Hundreds of individuals inside federal prisons have successfully registered and voted in recent elections.

Under current policies, BOP does not share important voter information with local election officials, and it can be difficult to know whether voter registration materials and ballots successfully reach incarcerated voters. Additional efforts and coordination are therefore required to ensure that individuals properly receive election information and submit election materials in a timely manner. BOP might consider pursuing an exception to the regulations prohibiting information sharing for election agencies, such as a Routine Use Exception to the Privacy Act.

[A]lthough BOP has adopted a practice of treating some incoming mail from election officials and all outgoing mail addressed to election officials as ‘legal mail’ or ‘special mail,’ this practice is not always followed. I encourage BOP to consider comprehensively adding election agencies to the list of offices for which all correspondence is considered ‘special mail.’ I would also encourage BOP to build on existing work to support voters with disabilities and to provide incarcerated voters with important information on candidates and ballot initiatives.”

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