OPINION: Expanding in-jail voting opportunities in Mississippi

By Taiquan “Tai” L. Coleman, M.S.

JA Guest Writer

“Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined,” Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in 1961.  I concur.

Yet more than sixty years later, our nation continues to disenfranchise current and formerly incarcerated Americans.

Although it is highly unlikely that Congress, the Supreme Court, or the Mississippi statehouse will intervene insofar as felony disenfranchisement is concerned in the near future, it is well within the jurisdiction of the state legislature to expand access to the franchise for pre-trial detainees and misdemeanants in jails across the state.

And while Mississippi has recently amended absentee voting laws to include those incarcerated in county jails, per the Marshall Project, bureaucracy may still impede one’s ability to vote. If so, this could violate the holding in O’Brien v. Skinner (1974), which states that eligible, jailed citizens who are awaiting trial or serving time for a non-disenfranchising crime are entitled to vote, and that the state cannot place a burden on their ability to do so. Therefore, it is imperative that Mississippi expand in-person voting opportunities for eligible voters detained in jails and detention centers in the Magnolia State.

Although they represent only a minority of the population, expanding in-person voting for detainees has the potential to shift election results. We learn from legal scholar Robin Fisher that when the incumbent president “won the 2016 presidential contest in Michigan by 10,700 votes; there were 16,600 people detained in Michigan jails during the election. Similarly, [when former] President Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the 2020 presidential contest in Georgia by 12,670 votes; there were approximately 37,456 people detained in Georgia’s jails during the election. If Michigan’s and Georgia’s policies did not inhibit jailed citizens from voting, the states very well may have seen different electoral results.” 

In 2024, Colorado became the first state in the Union to require that the offices of respective County Clerks and Sheriffs coordinate to ensure that in-person voting “be open for at least [six] hours” for eligible, jailed citizens at their facilities, and according to the Colorado Secretary of State, nearly 3,000 jailed Coloradans voted in the 2024 general election, an increase of nearly 1000% when compared to the 2022 midterm elections.

Now there are those, namely Clegg and von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation, who believe that states, as well as elected and appointed officials, reserve the right to “fine tune” the electorate. They claim that we have a “certain minimum, objective standards of responsibility and commitment to our laws that we require people to meet before they are given a role in the solemn enterprise of self-government.”  

Need I remind them that pre-trial detainees are innocent until proven guilty pursuant to the holding in Coffin v. United States (1895)? Or perhaps I should quote Chief Justice Warren once more and assert that “[c]itizenship is not a license that expires upon misbehavior.”  There is no compelling state interest in choosing not to expand access to the franchise, and “[a] jailed citizen [if] a qualified voter, is no more nor less so because he [or she] lives in a cell.”  

Therefore, advocates, the legislature, and the Executive Chamber must work together to make sure all eligible Mississippians, whether incarcerated or free, are able to vote. They deserve better. We all do.

Taiquan L. Coleman is an independent researcher and third generation Brooklynite. In addition to more than a decade of service in the New York City and New York State legislatures, he holds an M.S. in Government Affairs and Advocacy from Albany Law School and a B.A. in American History from the State University of New York at Albany.