New Law Ensures Mchenry County Jail Detainees Are Offered Chance To Vote

A law that took effect Jan. 1 will grant easier voting access to residents detained at the McHenry County Jail. The McHenry County Sheriff’s Office and Clerk’s Office began making preparations for inmate voting shortly after Gov. JB Pritzker signed Senate Bill 2090 in August. The law expands detainees’ voting rights and requires prisons to issue educational resources to inmates upon their release. “Very early on, we met with some officials from the jail as well as the sheriff to get them some vote-by-mail and register-to-vote documents,” McHenry County Chief Deputy Clerk Debra Nieto said. In 2019, only eight Illinois counties – Champaign, Coles, Cook, DuPage, Sangamon, Lake, Piatt and Tazewell – had programs in place to ensure that pretrial inmates could vote during elections, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Because county jails primarily house pretrial inmates who will be released within weeks or months of their arrival, it’s important to prepare them for successful reentry, Lake County Sheriff John Idleburg said. “I believe everyone in society who wishes to exercise their right to vote should be afforded the opportunity, including inmates,” Idleburg said.