On a recent trip to Rikers Island, a small group of volunteers visited two dorm-style buildings to register eligible voters. After roughly three hours and dozens of one-on-one conversations, the volunteers collected 84 completed voter registration and absentee ballot application forms — enough for roughly 1.4% of the island’s likely eligible population.

That was a good day, according to the group.

Most people detained on Rikers Island are eligible to vote. But under New York City’s current system, thousands of them may not get a chance. As the election season intensifies, advocates are warning that this population in pretrial detention faces the risk of systematic disenfranchisement. They point to data indicating that in a recent primary, only a fifth of the people who requested ballots from Rikers ultimately had their votes counted.

“We’re a Band-Aid in a flood,” said Rigodis Appling, staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society and one of the volunteer voter outreach coordinators. “There’s tons of people who we’re just not getting to.”

The Band-Aid gets applied no more than twice monthly, when a Department of Correction employee brings volunteers with what’s known as the Vote in NYC Jails coalition to help incarcerated people complete forms. That is the city’s way of complying with state and local laws requiring it to let people vote while held pretrial.

Even if they’ve already registered, people held at Rikers need to request absentee ballots, since they can’t walk into polling places. The volunteers only help people complete the paperwork, and a Department of Correction employee must then ferry forms and ballots between the jail and the Board of Elections.

“If they’re not filled out accurately, they’re rejected,” said Selwyn Fergus, who administers the program for the Department of Correction. “And you know, if it’s rejected, they could potentially not vote.”

When voters who are not incarcerated make errors on forms, they are supposed to be notified and given the opportunity to correct defects. But when people at Rikers make mistakes, Fergus said, “it becomes problematic.”

Members of the coalition said that people held at Rikers do not get the opportunity to fix any mistakes, and as a result, many of their ballots do not get counted.

As of Monday, the New York City Board of Elections said it has received 534 absentee ballot applications from voters at Rikers this year, with 476 deemed valid — representing about 8% of the 6,000 people detained there, all of whom are over 18. (Potential voters must also be U.S. citizens and not have any felony convictions, which applies to most people at Rikers.) An additional 191 forms were submitted this week and had not yet been processed.

Not all of those ballots requested will turn into votes cast. According to data that NYC Votes in Jails compiled from the Department of Correction, potential voters submitted 364 absentee ballot applications for the recent June 25 primary. Fewer than half that many ballots – 155 – were delivered to the facility, and just 72 were completed and returned to be counted, the coalition found.

For the past three years, the coalition has repeatedly asked the city to do more to ensure incarcerated voters have access to registration forms and absentee ballots.

The city, for its part, says that it’s meeting its legal obligation.

“Incarceration should not be a barrier to representation, and we look forward to helping those in our care make their voices heard this election season,” Department of Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie said in a statement. “We partner with volunteers to educate people in custody about their voting rights, register them to vote, and provide them with absentee ballots.”

Vote in Jails asked the New York City Board of Elections to open an early voting site at the facility in 2022. The board refused.

Michael Ryan, executive director of the New York City Board of Elections, wrote in a November 2022 letter to the group that the responsibility fell primarily to the Department of Correction, but “the Board fully cooperates with its absentee ballot program.”

Election officials in some other parts of the state expend more of their own resources to ensure voting in jail. Roughly 100 miles north of New York City, Ulster County’s bipartisan elections commissioners send elections officials along with trained volunteers to their local jail to process registration forms, ballot applications and ballots themselves in person.

The Ulster County Jail is far smaller than the sprawling complex at Rikers Island. Just about 130 people — not all of whom were eligible to vote — were there when the elections officials and volunteers recently visited. But the team processed 31 absentee ballot applications, and gave people ballots to complete on-site so that they could be scanned at the Board’s office without delay. That means there was no drop-off between the people who sought and received ballots, and those who actually voted.

“We found the addition of the jail to our absentee outreach to be incredibly easy to integrate,” said Ashley Dittus Torres, the Democratic commissioner of the Ulster County Board of Election. “In NYC they have access to a lot more resources than an upstate board like mine, so it may be even easier if they attempted to replicate.”

Dittus Torres also pointed out that all local boards of elections are required to do something similar to reach people in nursing homes.

Vincent Ignizio, deputy executive director of the New York City Board of Elections, cited “logistical, operational, and security concerns” that prevent the agency from setting up an in-person voting model at Rikers Island. He did not comment directly on the Ulster County model.

Advocates in the Vote in Jails coalition have pushed for oversight from the New York City Council, asking lawmakers to hold a hearing about the lack of voting access at Rikers. But it’s unclear if the Board of Elections would comply with new city-initiated mandates; it refused to allow city-established online voter registration until compelled by state law.

Advocates might fare better at the state level, where legislation can force officials to overhaul how they run elections. In recent years, the state has added nine days of early voting, online voter registration access, later voter registration deadlines and expanded access to mail ballots.

Assemblymember Latrice Walker, chair of the Election Law Committee, and state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, who is preparing a primary challenge against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, have co-sponsored a proposal to compel an in-person program like the one in Ulster County.

People held before trial “have not been convicted of a crime,” Walker said. “They should have all of the same access to the services of the city and state of New York that any other citizen enjoys.”

Volunteers with the Vote in Jails coalition say there is an even easier way to ensure the eligible voters at Rikers Island and other facilities can cast their ballot. They want the city Board of Elections to set up a poll site at the facility.

“I go to the school on the corner and I early vote. Why can’t I do that here?” Appling said.

City elections officials cite the limitations of their current voting machine technology and the numerous different ballot configurations and languages required under law.

For now, the coalition volunteers will continue visiting Rikers to reach as many voters as they can. They think they’ll be able to register and request some 700 ballots by the election, approximately 12% of the eligible population. Even fewer will complete and cast ballots.