San Quentin prisoners, desperate to vote, choose Biden in mock election

“I want to be heard,” one man wrote on the back of a makeshift ballot in a simulated election held inside San Quentin state prison. Another wrote that he was voting because “I’d like to feel like a citizen; feel like I am important too.”

The total population of US prisons and jails is greater than all but four American cities. But with a few exceptions (Maine, Vermont and now Washington, DC), citizens held in state and federal prisons cannot participate in the democratic process. In California, even people on parole cannot vote, though a measure called Proposition 17 could change that this year. The thousands of men in San Quentin do not worry about violence at polling places or missing mail-in ballots. We know from the start that our votes won’t count.

At least 1,600 men spend more than 23 hours a day locked inside windowless, 4ft x 10ft cells. The unventilated housing units, five tiers high, have their windows welded shut – perfect environments for the coronavirus to thrive. There have been more than 2,200 confirmed cases at San Quentin – three-quarters of the prison’s total population – and 28 incarcerated men have died.

Some of the men incarcerated here were nonetheless given a chance to make their choices – and their voices – known through a mock election. The mock election goal: poll those held in the general population in north block and west block, who represent about 85% of the total population. To make it happen, on 1 October, Solitary Watch, which is collaborating with the Guardian to support our election and publish our story, mailed 800 ballots to north block and 800 more to west block. The ballots, delivered via express mail, have been sitting in the prison mailroom since 2 October. Calls from Solitary Watch went unanswered.

It was under these circumstances that 150 handmade ballots were passed out in north block on October 10. Three days later, 170 more were smuggled into west block, accompanied by a note that read: “Since CDCR [California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] is holding the ballots, we have to improvise.”

Every other day, about 160 of the 800 men on north block are let out of their cells for 90 minutes, tier-by-tier, until everyone on all five tiers gets a chance to shower in one of 10 (racially segregated) community showers and/or go to the prison yard and/or make a 15-minute telephone call on one of 12 phones, if sign-up slots are available. Voting took place during this time, and north block cast 103 votes.

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On west block, ballots were hastily passed out and collected over a two-day period during brief cell unlocks. The first day, an impromptu lockup impeded the process, and on the second day a short medical quarantine placed the election in jeopardy. But 73 ballots were retrieved and tallied.

Overall, this random sampling delivered a landslide to Biden, who received 141 votes to Trump’s 27 – a ratio of 8 to 1. (One person wrote in “freedom liberty,” and three others wrote “other” or “undecided.”)

Each ballot also said: “I want to vote because … ” and left room for handwritten comments. These showed that while Trump’s talk about prison reform and pardons had resonated in San Quentin, only a few thought criminal justice reform would have a better chance under a second Trump term. Some Trump supporters credited him for building “the wall,” creating economic growth, and making good trade deals; others simply did not like Biden.

Brian Asey has been incarcerated 22 years. He voted for Biden. He’s never voted before.

“I want to vote because I want to change our city officials because they are the ones who can make a difference in my community,” said Asey, who was working in the prison’s media department as a film-maker before Covid-19. “The president is too busy lining his and his base’s pockets with money to care about anything else … He don’t care about the people, he only cares about making money.”

Another Biden voter wrote, “Trump is a habitual liar.” That’s not a quality people find appealing in a place where a man’s word is supposed to be his bond. The words “Nazi/KKK” and “White Supremacy” were parenthetically scrawled around Trump’s name on another vote for Biden.

Alex Ross, 54, has been incarcerated 26 years. He voted for Biden. “I want to vote because it is necessary that all voices be heard and to counter ethnic cleansing by way of prison,” Ross said. So did 49-year-old Tim Hick, who said that, politically, denying those in prison the right to vote is “a strategic way to red-line people”.

While Trump voters were in the minority, the current president still garnered some support. “Trump’s a businessman from jump-start – a good businessman, period,” said Daniel James Longorio, one of the few Trump supporters in north block.

Last year, the group Initiate Justice conducted a survey of people incarcerated and on parole in California and published a report, Democracy Needs Everyone. The results suggested that ending felony disenfranchisement would have a positive impact on public safety.

While 63% of respondents in that survey said they never voted prior to incarceration, 98% said they’d vote now, if they could. They wanted to have a voice in society, a say in elected leadership, and a chance to contribute positively to their community.

San Quentin’s Rodney “Pit” Baylis, 60, has been incarcerated 24 years. He said the last time he voted was 1982.

“As long as there is inequality in America, there will always be a civil rights movement to fill those missing pages of history,” Baylis said. “The next president’s job is going to be the hardest seat to fill because so many things are left broken. To fill this seat everyone needs to help him. The Republicans and Democrats have to come together as one to fix this country.”

Meanwhile, some people in prison, conscious of the harm they’ve inflicted on fellow citizens, also have a special understanding of the need for justice and restoration –something that is particularly relevant in these times of deep racial, economic, and political divisions.

One man, explaining his reason for voting, wrote simply: “We need to heal.”

• Juan Haines and Kevin Sawyer have both been incarcerated at California’s San Quentin state prison for over two decades. Haines, 63, is senior editor at the award-winning prison publication the San Quentin News and a regular contributor to the Appeal and to Solitary Watch; he continued reporting as he fought Covid-19 from a solitary confinement cell during the prison’s massive outbreak. Sawyer, 57, is associate editor at the San Quentin News

• Project coordinators: Valerie Kiebala and James Ridgeway, Solitary Watch