By Dylan Hayre, ACLU Justice Division Campaign Strategist

Since the inception of this pandemic, it has been clear that incarcerated people are particularly at risk from COVID-19. In addition to the clear, consistent guidance from public health experts, incarcerated families, corrections staff, and data scientists urged states to take action to prevent tragedy.
 
Unfortunately, states failed to heed these warnings and have failed to protect incarcerated people, facility staff, and communities at large from the looming threat of COVID-19.
 
This is the core finding of a new ACLU report: “Failing Grades: States’ Responses to COVID-19 in Jails & Prisons,” co-authored with Prison Policy Initiative. The report evaluated states based on four criteria:

• Testing all staff and incarcerated people, and making sure everyone had access to personal protective equipment;
• Whether the governor issued an executive order to stop the churn of people coming into jails, and to immediately get people out of jails and prisons;
• Sharing data, disaggregated by race, so the public has insight into how the crisis is unfolding and being addressed; and
• Actually reducing the number of people in jails and prisons — the most important step any state can take in this moment.

There is no doubt that the responsibility to respond to this crisis falls heavily on states: Of the 2.3 million people incarcerated in this country, over 1.9 million people are in state prisons or local jails. These facilities are cramped, unhygienic, and designed to inhibit a person’s ability to protect themselves. Social distancing is impossible. Human contact is unavoidable. Soap and medical attention are prohibitively expensive, while hand sanitizer is often regarded as contraband. And unfettered access to open air and outdoor spaces is essentially nonexistent.
 
The results of states’ failure to respond are therefore as tragic as they were predictable. Jails and prisons have become the epicenter of this pandemic. Most of the largest COVID-19 clusters are in jails and prisons, and the largest hotspot in most states is inside a jail or prison. Moreover, to date, over 600 incarcerated people and over 50 staff have died. These numbers will only increase as COVID-19 continues to run rampant in these facilities.
 
This impacts all of us. Not forcefully confronting COVID-19 in jails and prisons will have deep reverberations in neighboring communities. Just as importantly, this travesty exacerbates the racial inequities that define mass incarceration. We know that the egregious harm created by our carceral systems has always been deliberately concentrated in Black and Brown communities. A similar disparity has played out in the COVID-19 pandemic — a product of generational underinvestment in the housing, health care, and other resources that communities depend on for protection in moments like this.
 
Yet it is not too late to change course. It is not too late for leadership. This report offers more than an evaluation of what has not happened; it also offers some ideas and a blueprint for what must happen now. The lives lost cannot be brought back, but other lives can still be saved. People can still be allowed to go home. Corrections staff can work without fear of carrying a virus back to their families. And we can actually combat this pandemic while caring for and centering people’s humanity and dignity.

By Jeffery Robinson, ACLU Deputy Legal Director and Director of the Trone Center for Justice and Equality

As people across the country ready themselves to celebrate America’s “independence,” there are few symbols more strongly associated with the holiday than flags. Flags have great meaning — particularly on July 4. This week, after decades of dispute and dialogue, Mississippi legislators finally voted to replace their state’s flag, which included what is known as the battle flag of northern Virginia. This was the flag flown by those defending white supremacy, and for some, it still is. The vote to remove the confederate iconography from the state flag raises important questions: Why was Mississippi the last state to remove such images from its flag — and why is this so significant?

If you asked Americans which state has the most racist history, many would likely say Mississippi. This ugly reputation is well deserved. According to its own secession statement, white people in the state had accumulated “four billions in money” from the practice of enslaving Black people. Jim Crow and segregation were everyday hallmarks in the lives of Mississippians. Sen. Theodore Bilbo, who represented the state in the U.S. Senate from 1935 to 1947, highlighted how critical white supremacy was in the lives of Mississippians when he called on “every red-blooded white man to use any means to keep the niggers away from the polls — if you don’t understand what that means you are just plain dumb. You and I know what’s the best way to keep the nigger from voting … you do it the night before the election.”

Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner are all names that shine a light on Mississippi’s history of white supremacy, violence, and hate. The University of Washington’s Lynching Violence Database documents 689 lynchings in Mississippi between 1877 and 1949 — the most of any American state. However, it was the modern-day lynching of George Floyd, broadcast across America, that sparked the current movement that led to the decision about the Mississippi flag.

Claims that the flag represents culture and heritage instead of white supremacy are refuted by the words of those honored on confederate monuments. In 1887, then Secretary of the Interior Lucius Q. C. Lamar spoke at the dedication of John Calhoun’s monument and said that he had to talk about Calhoun’s views on enslaving human beings, because “dissimulation and evasion were so foreign to his character that in his own case no one would disapprove and even disdain such silence more than he.” Calhoun was a virulent white supremacist, and last week, the infamous monument was removed from Charleston, South Carolina’s Marion Square following ongoing protests.

America has had 155 years of “dissimulation and evasion” about the confederate battle flag. The facts about the flag have always been damning, and they still are today. In his “Cornerstone” speech of 1861, then-vice president of the confederacy Alexander H. Stephens said the confederacy was founded on the principle that “the negro is not equal to the white man and that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.” That statement highlights a truth that “heritage” cannot hide: The heritage of the confederacy was white supremacy. All people who fought under the battle flag that appeared on Mississippi’s state flag fought for white supremacy.

When Mississippi left the union, the state issued a secession statement that left no doubt about an unshakable belief in this racist doctrine:

“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the Black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.

The Union has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union…”

The northern Virginia battle flag stood for the same thing. Virginia’s secession statement was brief, but also clear: “…having declared that the powers granted them under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression; and the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slaveholding states. ”

President Trump’s response to this history is laughable. He claims that removing the names of confederate heroes from military institutions would further divide the country, and that monuments should remain, because “if you don’t understand history you will go back to it again.”

Confederate heroes and the battle flag they fought under were willing, as John C. Calhoun wrote, “to drench the country in blood” to maintain white supremacy. Preserving their names on military institutions essentially tells Black Americans, “We don’t care what they did to your ancestors. Don’t bring it up, or we will be even more divided.” Monuments that portray confederate traitors as heroes have done nothing to prevent a new rise in white supremacy — they are literally monuments to this harmful, racist ideology, which will be engrained in our memories and history books no matter how many monuments are toppled. 

When you fly a flag, it has meaning. Especially on July 4. The decision to retire the Mississippi state flag is not erasing history, it is telling the truth about it. And telling the truth is a necessary first step to reckoning with the legacy of slavery in America.

https://twitter.com/ACLU/statuses/1279407160305336320

By ACLU

COVID-19 highlighted the need for universal access to no-excuse vote by mail. For many voters with disabilities, vote by mail has always been the safest and most accessible way to cast a ballot, because it allows them to avoid the challenges of getting to the polls, waiting in line, and facing physical barriers at the polling place. While in-person polling places are required to be fully accessible, we still see violations such as lack of ramps or elevators, voting machines not properly set up, and facilities without adequate signage indicating accessible routes or parking. 

States must act now to enact universal, no-excuse vote by mail. Additionally, states must take steps to support accessibility, while also ensuring that safely voting in person remains an option. 

Below, we outline key steps to increase accessibility for voters with disabilities.

DO: Let everybody request a mail-in ballot online

States should automatically send mail-in ballots to all registered voters, rather than maintaining a more complex “opt-in” system for voting by mail, where voters must request a ballot. But if it’s not possible to send ballots automatically, then the process for requesting a mail-in ballot should be quick and easy, and voters should be able to make these requests online or by phone. 

To further improve accessibility, states should ensure that all election websites comply with accessibility guidelines so that every voter can easily access voter registration, procedural guidelines, ballot applications, and information about candidates and ballot initiatives.

DO: Let voters receive ballots electronically

Voters with disabilities who would like to vote from the safety of their homes should be able to receive their ballots on an electronic interface, mark those ballots using the accessible technology they have at home, and then print out and mail their voted ballots. Electronic ballot marking allows voters with “print” disabilities (including those with visual impairments) to read and mark their ballot using the accessibility features on their personal devices. Commonly used assistive technologies include screen readers, digital magnifiers, and text-to-speech software. Several states, including Ohio, Maryland, and Oregon, have already made electronic ballot marking systems available for voting by mail. 

Electronic ballot marking is not equivalent to online voting. While an electronic ballot marking system allows voters to receive their ballots via an electronic interface, the voted ballots are not submitted electronically. Once completed, the ballots are printed out and mailed back to the local election office. Online voting, by contrast, would involve casting and submitting a completed ballot over the internet. Currently-available online voting options cannot guarantee a valid and secret vote. 

DON’T: Impose signature match requirements on voters with disabilities

Signature match requirements present an additional barrier to voters who have conditions that make it hard to consistently sign their name. States should waive these requirements for voters with disabilities.   

DON’T: Require witnesses or notarization 

In some states, people who vote by mail must get their ballot envelope notarized or provide a witness signature. While witness and notarization requirements present specific challenges for people with disabilities, they present even greater barriers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social distancing guidelines currently restrict the ability of all voters — not just those with disabilities — to find a physically-present witness or notary. 

DO: Train election workers on accessibility

Election officials should undergo virtual training on how to assist voters with disabilities in navigating election websites and marking their ballots electronically. Election officials should also learn how to respectfully interact with voters with disabilities so they can provide helpful information and services without infringing on a voter with a disability’s right to a private, independent vote. All staff responding to election-related inquiries should be able to answer questions about accessible voting options. 

Preparing election officials for these tasks will help voters with disabilities have a dignified voting experience.

DO: Spread public awareness about accessible voting options

The reforms outlined here will have the most impact if voters are aware of the voting options and resources available to them. Election officials should inform all voters by contacting them directly through reasonably available methods such as mail, email, phone calls, and text messages. Local disability advocacy organizations should serve as key partners on election planning and disseminating voting-related information to people with disabilities. 

States must act now to ensure that all voters, including voters with disabilities, can vote safely in the age of COVID-19, and without unnecessary barriers or burdensome requirements. 

The vote by mail reforms we’re seeing in many states are efforts to improve accessibility during the pandemic. We should use the opportunity to improve accessibility for all voters, including voters with disabilities. Voting rights are disability rights.  

For more information on increasing accessibility for voters with disabilities  — and all voters — see our guide for election officials.