The Voting Booth with Steel Bars: Prisoners Voting Rights and O'Brien v. Skinner
![handle is hein.journals/capulr3 and id is 251 raw text is: THE VOTING BOOTH WITH STEEL BARS:
PRISONERS VOTING RIGHTS AND O'BRIEN
v. SKINNER
INTRODUCTION
The exercise of the voting franchise by prisoners has been the
subject of recent litigation. Prisoners who are unable to appear per-
sonally at polling places on election day have been attempting to
exercise the right to vote. The most obvious vehicle for prisoner
voting is the absentee ballot, which, by operation of state law, ex-
tends an opportunity to cast ballots in federal or state elections to
persons otherwise unable to appear at the polls on election day.
The state laws creating the absentee ballot procedure com-
monly extend the absentee voting privilege to specified classes, such
as persons absent from the county of residence and the medically
disabled. About 45 states lack any absentee classification which
includes prisoners incarcerated within the prisoners' county of resi-
dence.' The failure to include prisoners in an absentee voting
scheme has been challenged as a denial of equal protection under
the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution.2
I. O'BRIEN V. SKINNER: LOGICAL CONCLUSION OF MCDONALD V.
BOARD
O'Brien v. Skinner,3 decided in 1974 by the United States Su-
preme Court, will have an important impact on prisoners who have
not been included among state absentee voting classifications. The
Court in O'Brien held that prisoners who are otherwise legally quali-
fied to vote cannot be denied the right to vote solely because of
incarceration. If the state provides no other method of voting for the
prisoners, the statute which excludes prisoners from absentee voting
denies them the equal protection of the laws. O'Brien appears to be
consistent with McDonald v. Board of Election Commissioners of
1. McDonald v. Board of Elections Comm'rs, 394 U.S. 802, 810 n.9 (1969) (unanimous
decision).
2. U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, §1, which provides in pertinent part: [N]or shall any
State . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
3. __ U.S. -, 94 S.Ct. 740 (1974). Burger, C.J.; Douglas; Brennan; Stewart;
White; Marshall; Powell, J.J., concurring; Blackmun; Rehnquist, J.J. dissenting.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/capulr3&div=21&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Voting Booth with Steel Bars: Prisoners Voting Rights and O'Brien v. Skinner
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