Additional Resource
As part of the Ash Center’s ongoing work examining the legal, political, and policy implications of advancing jail-based voting, Aaron Rosewood and Tova Wang examine the statutory basis for jail voting in each state.
Under the U.S. Constitution, all qualified citizens have the “unquestionable” right to vote. However, hundreds of thousands of eligible voters across the United States still face limited access to this fundamental right. On any given day, more than 500,000 Americans are held in jail for pretrial detention or misdemeanor offenses. Unlike Americans in prison, who are generally being held for felony convictions that disqualify them from voting, the bulk of people in American jails have not been convicted of any disqualifying crime. Nevertheless, those who are incarcerated on an election day encounter substantial barriers to voting in almost every state.
Our research aims to highlight the barriers voters in state and local jails face when trying to exer- cise their voting rights as well as opportunities for states to improve access to voting for these citizens. To that end, our team evaluated laws in all 50 states with two focuses: first, assessing states’ adoption of key policies that facilitate voting from jail, and second, identifying the states whose policies fail to meet the fundamental threshold of ensuring incarcerated voters’ rights.
For the purposes of this report, we hold establishing a polling place within the jail and allowing voters to cast their ballots in person as the ideal standard for providing voting rights to the jail population. While we acknowledge the unique challenges posed by in-person voting in jails, multiple cities in the United States have recently demonstrated that it is both possible and deeply meaningful for voters.
The following pages contain the results of our research. We begin with a series of representative state profiles. Each profiled state represents a different set of prevailing legal conditions that influence the possibility of voting from jail. In some, existing law provides a sturdy foothold for efforts to create in-person jail voting. In others, promoting incarcerated voters’ rights will involve changing obstructive laws. Still others leave the choice up to individual jurisdictions, making the fate of jail voters dependent on county or municipal leadership. We hope that these profiles provide insight into the practical implications of the data we have gathered, benefiting both voters and advocates.
The bulk of the report consists of summaries of the relevant features of each state’s legal code. For each state, we provide a summary of the effect of current laws on jailed voters’ access to the franchise. We then provide citations to the sections of the state code that either enable or restrict jailed residents’ ability to vote, whether in person or by mail. We have also attempted to highlight occasions where non-statutory state policies have a significant impact on jail voting. That said, our focus is on the statutory basis for jail voting in each state, and our findings should be read with an awareness that laws on the books do not always reflect the lived experience of incarcerated voters.
Podcast
High voter turnout is often celebrated as a sign of a healthy democracy, with election officials viewing strong participation as evidence of public engagement and political legitimacy. On Terms of Engagement, Professor Jason Brennan joins cohosts Archon Fung and Stephen Richer to examine whether higher turnout actually strengthens democracy.
Commentary
In this opinion piece, Audrey Feldman, Todd Rogers and Ben Valenta — participants in the Sports, Democracy and Civic Health project — describe their findings showing that shared fandom can soften partisan animosity and make political opponents more willing to connect.
Q+A
New research from More in Common explores how sports connect Americans across differences and strengthen their community ties.
Additional Resource
The Shorenstein Center’s 2026 Voting Information Trends project—developed in collaboration with the National Internet Observatory at Northeastern University, the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation’s Program on Democracy and the Informed Public, and The Civic Health and Institutions Project—provides new insights into the voter information landscape in the United States ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Among the resources, an interactive dashboard maps where Americans are finding voting information and learning about key aspects of the voting process—from sourcing polling locations to voter registration. Also included are a series of trends reports gauging perceptions of voting in the lead up to the 2026 midterm elections.
Feature
On Tuesday, September 15, 2026, former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, now an Ash Senior Fellow and election administration expert, testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight. The hearing examined allegations that approximately 6,600 noncitizens were improperly registered to vote in New Jersey between June 2023 and June 2024.
Commentary
Allen Lab Fellow Tyler Fisher examines the untapped potential of city charters as a vehicle for deliberative democracy, arguing that advocates should work to embed tools like citizen assemblies, participatory budgeting, and town meetings directly into the governing architecture of cities, institutionalizing deliberative democracy one municipality at a time.
