Voting for Mayor From Rikers

On a recent Wednesday, I stood in a room at Rikers with a dozen other volunteers from the Vote in NYC Jails Coalition, waiting for an escort to let us into the rest of the facility. In the corner behind the first of two ID checkpoints, just past the booth filled with rows of handcuffs, three correctional officers draped fake spiders and witch hats against a purple backdrop for Halloween. As they collected our IDs and we filed through the metal detectors, one white officer made a joke about Indigenous Peoples Day, which had been two days prior. "It's my holiday, for my people!" Another officer handed us yellow passes. "Don't lose those, unless of course you want to stay," he quipped. 

We were there to register incarcerated New Yorkers to vote. Founded in 2021, the coalition works to enfranchise the thousands of New Yorkers held on Rikers and in other City jails. They visit the jail complex once a month—and twice in an election season—to register voters and answer questions about how to complete absentee ballot request forms. Registrations have increased recently, according to the coalition. In September, the group signed up 95 new voters; typically, the average hovers around 40 each month.