Christina Das, an attorney on the Black Voters on the Rise team at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, emphasizes that pretrial detainees are still unconstitutionally denied access to the ballot due to procedural failures, illustrating a gap between voting rights on paper and their practical application. Despite having the right to vote, systemic biases and administrative challenges make it extremely difficult for incarcerated individuals to actualize this right.
Das explains that the U.S. operates under a patchwork of state laws governing voting for incarcerated individuals, placing the burden of facilitating their voting rights on voters, lawmakers, and election administrators. This creates inconsistencies that further disenfranchises individuals, particularly those who are newly detained, as many face missed deadlines for requesting absentee ballots simply due to the timing of their arrests.
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