Inmate Voting Awareness and Eligibility Program

About the Program

Category: Civic Education and Public Information (Best in Category)

Year: 2010

The Inmate Voting Awareness and Eligibility Program ensures that nearly 20,000 inmates in the custody of the Sheriff at any given time are afforded information on eligibility for voter registration and absentee voting when legally entitled. The program is a recent collaboration of government and private sector groups including the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD), the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s Office, and a contracted County vendor. The program provides for LASD staff training in eligibility rules and regulations, followed by a non-partisan inmate awareness campaign preceding elections which span the County’s eight custody sites. Included in the program are materials distributed via the Department’s commissary provider, postings, and flyers, on-site/one-on-one eligibility education and forms assistance, and a mechanism for both pick-up and delivery of applications and ballots to and from the Registrar-Recorder’s Office. The program has resulted in phenomenal voter registration and vote-by-mail percentage increases and ensured legal entitlement to vote.