Voter turnout efforts extend to jail inmates

PORTSMOUTH

Sheriff Bill Watson wanted to get absentee ballots to a special group of shut-ins who won't be able to make it to the polls on Election Day: the prisoners in his jail.

Last week, he offered applications to inmates. One hundred fifty-three of them wanted to vote, but only 17 inmates were registered and will receive ballots, Lt. Karin Johnson, a spokeswoman, said Friday.

Registration drives have caused the commonwealth's voter rolls to swell since the last presidential election.

Law-and-order candidates needn't worry too much, though. As in the 580-prisoner Portsmouth City Jail, a modest number of inmates are applying for absentee ballots so far.

Watson, a Democrat, is "a constitutional officer, and he'd like to see everybody have that constitutional right," Johnson said. "Hey, in a few months most will be back on the street. They'll have to deal with their choices."

"I've been here 15 years, and this is the first time anyone's come by and asked for an application for someone in that predicament," said Deloris Overton Short, the city's general registrar.

Still, it's not unheard of. Virginia specifically allows absentee ballots for jailed residents, as long as they're not felons who have lost their voting rights.

For years in the Norfolk City Jail, civilian counselors have gone floor-to-floor offering ballots, said Bonita Harris, a spokeswoman. A few take advantage, she said.

"A lot of them aren't very civic-minded, unfortunately," Harris said. "But some of them are."

This year for the first time a nonpartisan group, the Hampton Roads Missing Voter Project, visited the Western Tidewater Regional Jail in Suffolk and the Chesapeake Correction Center in August. James Bailey, area manager of the group and a former Barack Obama campaign worker, focused on minority neighborhoods and areas with traditionally low registrations, such as jails.

"Folks were so excited about this election that it freaked me out," Bailey said.

He said he collected about 40 applications from each facility, with about a dozen each of those eligible to vote, out of 2,000 total prisoners.

The Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth also reported a first-time push this year for absentee ballots, but details weren't available. The Virginia Beach Correctional Center doesn't allow outside groups to solicit voter registrations or ballots, said Paula Miller, a spokeswoman.

Would-be jailhouse voters might understand better than most the consequences of a stern warning on the absentee-ballot application: Giving false information is a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

And you lose your right to vote.

Matthew Bowers, (757) 222-3893, matthew.bowers@pilotonline.com