What Colorado’s New Voting Law Means for Jail Inmates and Gender Identity

A new Colorado voting law carves out special voting rights protections for jail inmates, as well as for gender identity. 

On Monday, the state’s Democrat Gov. Jared Polis signed the law, which is framed as a state version of the federal Voting Rights Act. Democrat lawmakers in the state contend the Trump administration and federal courts have weakened enforcement of the 1965 federal Voting Rights Act, Colorado Newsline reported. 

Polis is the co-chairman of Governors Safeguarding Democracy, a coalition of Democrat governors founded late last year to oppose Trump administration initiatives, including Trump’s actions on election integrity. The other co-chairman of the group is Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, also a Democrat.

The legislative language says: “The bill creates the act, which prohibits political subdivisions from … Implementing, imposing, or enforcing a voting qualification or another prerequisite to voting based on an individual’s actual or perceived gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation; or … based on an individual’s confinement to a local jail, other than those eligibility qualifications that already exist.”

The bill goes on to create new avenues for litigation. 

“An aggrieved individual or organization (aggrieved person) may file a civil suit alleging voter suppression; voter dilution; an unlawful voting prerequisite based on gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation; or an unlawful voting prerequisite based on confinement to a local jail,” the legislation says. 

The Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition called it the “priority bill” for the legislative session.

The new law doubles down on an existing law requiring at least six hours of in-person voting for inmates. This led to 2,600 incarcerated individuals voting in the November 2024 election, The Guardian reported, which is a 1,000% increase from the 2022 election when only absentee voting was allowed. 

“In Colorado, we are proud of our world class safe and secure elections system, and I was proud to sign a new law today to ensure that Coloradans can freely and safely exercise their fundamental right to vote, now and in the future, without facing discrimination,” Polis said in a post on X. “This new law establishes a state-level Voting Rights Act, similar to the historic federal law, aimed at safeguarding our ability to make our voices heard and further reduce fraud.”

Colorado has already had problems with election issues, as noted in my book, “The Myth of Voter Suppression.” Judicial Watch found in 2020 that the 42 Colorado counties—about two-thirds of the state—have voter registration rates that exceed 100% of the voting-age population. 

The new law was sponsored in the legislature by Democrat lawmakers—state Sen. Julie Gonzales, and state Reps. Jennifer Bacon and Junie Joseph.

The law expands multilingual ballots access and empowers the state attorney general to enforce the law, as it will no longer have to refer voting rights cases to the U.S. Justice Department. 

Colorado is among nine blue states that enacted special voting rights laws in recent years, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The others are California, Connecticut, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Virginia and Washington.

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