Federal Law Needed to Protect Ex-Felon Voting Rights

[Jim Finnel]

More than 5 million people convicted of felonies will be barred from voting in the upcoming presidential election. This is a mind-boggling number of people who will be disenfranchised. The most alarming aspect is that many of them are eligible to vote but don't know it.

In New York state, if you are convicted of a felony, you automatically lose your right to vote. According to the New York State Division of Parole, your right to vote is restored once you have completed either parole or your maximum sentence. If you are on probation, your right to vote is never taken away. But most ex-felons do not know this.

When I was released from prison after serving 12 years under the Rockefeller drug laws, I had no clue about my eligibility to cast a vote. When I went to register to vote I was shocked when they informed me that I had to wait until I was first released from parole. I felt the pain of felony disenfranchisement since it seemed I was being further punished for my crime.

I saw my Queens neighborhood deteriorating around me but was powerless to do anything about it by casting my vote. I was elated when, after waiting for five years, I got off parole and was able to cast my first vote since being released from prison. I felt then like I was fully welcomed back by society as a citizen.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ), in New York state more than 100,000 people are convicted of felonies every year. A record 115,573 people were convicted of felony offenses in 2007. Nearly 62,300 of those who are convicted are currently on probation for felonies. This amounts to hundreds of thousands of individuals who probably think they cannot vote forever.

There is a growing concern among the public and policymakers for these people to discover their eligibility to cast a ballot. New York State Assemblyman Nick Perry of the 58th District of Kings County is one of those concerned. He currently is sponsoring legislative bill A4107, which would require the Division of Criminal Justice Services to notify former inmates that their right to vote has been restored within 30 days prior to their release.

In addition, it would require voter registration forms to be provided to these individuals. The bill will help former inmates reintegrate more fully into society by empowering them with the right to vote.

You may wonder why prisoners are not notified of this right. I think the problem lies in the voting system itself. In a report by the Brennan Center and the ACLU, based on hundreds of interviews with New York election officials, they found that one third of them did not know that individuals on probation could vote.

The report urged states to better train election officials and to eliminate complicated registration procedures and paperwork to make sure criminal defendants are fully informed about their voting rights.

Even at the federal level, legislation was introduced last week that would restore the right to vote in federal elections to individuals who were previously convicted of a crime, completed their prison terms and are living in the community. The Democracy Restoration Act of 2008 ( DRA, S. 6340, H.R. 7136 ) was introduced in both chambers of Congress by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich.

Exercising the right to vote should be an important part of a prisoner's rehabilitation. It's an act that makes one feel whole again following years of losing those rights as part of a punishment for crimes committed. If, through voting, individuals can become involved in the political process, they have a much better chance of fully integrating back into society.

Anthony Papa is the author of "15 To Life" and communications specialist for the Drug Policy Alliance in New York.


MapInc

 

[420]

i am one of these 5 million people...
when they took my voting rights in 1993, i began this mission...
i will continue this mission until we get our voting rights back as well as being able to grow and possess our beloved plant without fear of having our freedom taken...

 

[Weed420]

This caused by our shitty state legislators passing all these ridiculous felonies to begin with. Felonies should be reserved for that absolutely worse of crimes because it effects society so harshly. I've never had a felony and I would be very pissed if somebody took away my voting rights,hunting rights,gun ownership rights and the right to get a decent job. Drug use,drug sales,drug cultivation should never be a felony. At the worse make it a civil matter where you just get fined and left alone.

 

[jcaron61]

HOW LONG IS LONG ENOUGH?

For any man or woman convicted of a crime, successfully completing their sentence, along with any assigned parole or probation, is just the beginning. After their release from confinement, they are faced with re-integrating themselves back into their community – often in the same area and with the same influences that provided them opportunity to break the law in the first place.

Their search for employment is often stonewalled by the fact that they now have a conviction on their record. Employers performing a routine search find the negative information, and unless they are part of a progressive federal or state program, or willing to give the applicant a second chance, the applicant is put at the bottom of the list of candidates – if they remain on the list at all.

The goal of improving their own economic status and fighting the impulse to return to their former ways is complicated further by the fact that even advanced education – like a master’s degree – is often not enough to convince a potential employer to give them another chance.
Apartment leases, home mortgages, opening a bank account or a credit card, and many other processes that non-offenders take for granted are often closed to these individuals. This situation continues for as long as the conviction stays on their record, and with the advent of computers, the information is even easier to find.

How long is long enough for a person convicted of a crime, who has successfully completed their parole and / or probation, to continue to pay for that crime? The Connecticut Pardon Team was founded in 2004 to provide tools and information for individuals convicted of a crime who are interested in clearing their record through the non-inmate pardon within our state through the Connecticut Pardon Team, inc Connecticut Pardon Team - Providing Information and Tools to Help Change Lives