While a CalMatters report last year found that many of the 73,000 or so California residents held in county jails who are eligible to vote face barriers in casting ballots, local officials say that wasn’t the case in Humboldt County in November.
When addressing the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors in advance of its certification of local elections results, Humboldt County Registrar of Voters Juan Pablo Cervantes credited the sheriff’s office’s efforts with ensuring local inmates who were eligible had the opportunity to cast a ballot.
“I wanted to highlight the exceptional work done by the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office in ensuring that eligible inmates at the Humboldt County Correctional Facility were provided the opportunity to participate in the Nov. 5 election,” Cervantes told the Journal in an email. “Their work underscored the importance of protecting voting rights, even in challenging circumstances.”
While the vast majority of the approximately 92,000 people incarcerated by the California Department of Corrections are serving felony sentences and thus ineligible to vote, that’s not the case for the state’s estimated 78,000 people in county jails. The Prison Policy Initiative, a Massachusetts-based nonpartisan research organization, estimates about 60 percent of California’s jail inmates have not been convicted of a crime and are eligible to cast ballots. Those serving misdemeanor sentences are also eligible.
The CalMatters report pointed to a variety of obstacles advocates have faced statewide in helping inmates vote, including lengthy mail screening processes — including page limits for mailings — that don’t get registered voters their ballots or voter guides in time, if they get them at all. The report notes some jurisdictions don’t actively distribute information about voting to inmates, while visitation limits prevent outside groups from doing so.
But Cervantes said his office found willing partners at the local jail, noting this year’s get-out-the-incarcerated-vote effort included the updating of jail systems for voter registration, vote-by-mail ballots and same-day registration, all of which required “extensive collaboration” between the two county departments.
“Bryce Arnold, a program coordinator for the jail, showed remarkable dedication by facilitating the delivery of same-day provisional ballots on Election Night; a step that ensured every eligible voter had the opportunity to cast their ballot,” Cervantes said. “Additionally, we worked together to create a first-of-its-kind inmate Voter Information Guide for Humboldt County, This guide compiled all the ballot-specific information from the 39 versions of the county voter guide, ensuring inmates had access to materials tailored to their registration address. It was a crucial resource for helping voters at the facility navigate the electoral process with clarity and confidence.”
Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal tells the Journal that the American Civil Liberties Union sent his office inmate voting fliers and posters with information about what disqualifies people from voting and how to register, which jail staff posted in each of the housing units.
“During the election, the sheriff’s office made announcements in the dorms letting inmates know that if they wanted to vote in the election, we had ballots available,” Honsal says. “We believe that everyone who was eligible and wanted to vote had the opportunity to vote in the election.”
Arnold said in an email to the Journal that she and another sheriff’s office employee personally met with inmates who wanted to vote to assist with their registration applications, and started working with the elections office in October to make sure all voter education materials provided to the public would also be available to the incarcerated population.
“Once the voter registration deadline passed, Juan Cervantes provided us with the same-day voter registration applications,” she said, adding they were then taken to the dorms and offered to anyone interested. “All of the people who filled those out were provided with ballots specific to their voting districts and those who registered on the day of the vote were provided a generalized ballot. The multipurpose rooms in the housing units were set up with manila folders to provide some privacy to voters and the inmates were allowed to vote throughout the afternoon.”
Once ballots were collected, Arnold said she worked with a lieutenant to check vote eligibility and then submitted ballots to the elections office.
Honsal said a total of 82 inmates cast ballots in the November election. When the Journal spoke to him, Cervantes was unsure of the exact tally who cast ballots in the election but said the effort aimed to ensure those eligible had the option.
“While we are unable to quantify how many inmates voted by mail, as those ballots are processed through the regular vote-by-mail stream, the sheriff’s office facilitated voting for 45 provisional voters in the jail,” he said. “This result highlights the effectiveness of the process and the commitment to ensuring access to the ballot.”
The California Legislature passed a bill last year that would have created a pilot program for in-jail voting in three counties —San Benito, San Mateo and Santa Cruz — to improve voter participation. Specifically, the program would have required the counties’ jails to facilitate voter registration and in-person voting for all eligible inmates. Nearly all Republican legislators voted against the bill, though it had no official opposition. Gov. Gavin Newsom, however, vetoed the bill on Sept. 22, saying the money required to fund it should be allocated as part of the state budget process.
“While I appreciate the author’s commitment to this issue, under the Elections Code, counties are able to establish these types of programs without statutory authority,” Newsom wrote in his veto message. “Further, this bill creates a new, unfunded grant program and should be considered in the annual budget process. … It is important to remain disciplined when considering bills with significant fiscal implications that are not included in the budget, such as this measure.”
Countywide, 77 percent of Humboldt’s registered voters cast a ballot in the Nov. 5 election, while only 80 percent of those eligible are registered, according to the California Secretary of State’s Office.
Editor’s note: This story was updated from a previous version to include the exact number of inmates who cast ballots in the election, information that came in after publication.
This article appears in Through Mark Larson’s Lens 2025.
