Illinois House Bill 4469 is an initiative that, if passed, would affect inmates throughout the state. Drafted this past January with an implementation date of 2020, the bill consists of three major parts. It would turn Cook County Jail into an official polling location, would implement election processes at every jail in Illinois, and would provide “Know Your Rights” guides and voter registration forms to inmates upon release. This year the bill was passed in the Illinois General Assembly, but Governor Bruce Rauner has refused to sign it without an amendatory veto of its third provision.
“We then decided there are three things we need to do,” Bennett continues. “One, we need to have language, and then once we have a bill we need to get it through the general assembly.” The last of their goals was to create guides for inmates being released from facilities that would explain their voting rights.
“One of the things that [the ACLU] felt we could add value to was letting people know that they had rights,” Bennett says.
Although HB 4469 passed in both houses, Governor Rauner indicated he would only sign the bill with an amendatory veto that eliminated the distribution of “Know Your Rights” guides and voter registration forms to inmates upon release.
While the bill is currently at a standstill, Mbekeani-Wiley remains positive that we may see voting machines in Cook County Jail by 2020. “It is something that takes time to organize, and I think we heavily rely on organizations like Chicago Votes to implement initiatives.”
