The Center for Civic Participation

Ohio Free the Vote Coalition

VOTER WORK

The Ohio Free the Vote Coalition is a program of the Racial Fairness Project and promotes voter registration and participation among formerly incarcerated people. The Ohio Free the Vote Coalition has a tried-and-true model for|jail-based voter work. The Coalition has built its local work on a foundation of collaboration with the necessary governmental entities.|The Cuyahoga County Corrections Center provides escorts to volunteers who cover the entire county jail doing teach-ins and voter registration, over the course of a few weeks. The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections sends workers into the jails with the absentee ballots, treating it as a polling place and delivering each ballot individually.||The Coalition registered voters and offered absentee ballot request forms simultaneously for the 2003 General Election and the 2004 primary.|Our work builds on the efforts of Women's Re-Entry Network of Cleveland, which did voter registration in jail prior to the 2000 General Election. Chicago Legal Aid for Incarcerated Women, which was doing jail based voter registration years ago, and The Sentencing Project, which has done important statistical analysis and stakeholder convening work, have also been very inspirational to all of these efforts.

DESCRIPTION

The Racial Fairness Project envisions a community which embodies equity through a justice system that ensures fairness, dignity, accessibility, equality and reconciliation. The organizational mission is the pursuit of racial and ethnic justice through education, advocacy, and the empowerment of communities and institutions.

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