Blog
Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights
By Andrew Goldston – 03/22/11
Here’s some great news out of Nevada, where the Brennan Center has been working with the Chairman of the State Assembly’s Elections Committee to assist with the drafting of one bill and with amendments to a second. The two bills, together, would make Nevada a national leader on voting rights and voter registration.
Nevada’s voter registration system is still essentially paper-based. This makes the maintenance of basic voter registration records extra-costly and extra error-prone – a bad combination. Inaccurate, outdated registration rolls pose problems for election authorities, increasing the cost of election administration and voter mailings, making it difficult to properly plan for elections, and rousing fears of possible fraud.
An amended version of Nevada Assembly Bill 108 which will be introduced later today will propose to solve this problem by updating the voter registration system. The amended version of Bill 108 will propose full voter registration modernization, and would provide for:
- One-stop automated voter registration available for eligible citizens when they interact with a range of government agencies
- Portable voter registration, so that Nevada voters stay registered even if they move within the state. This is particularly important in a state like Nevada – according to the Census’ 2006 American Community Survey, nearly 400,000 Nevadans moved within the state in just a year – about 16% of the state’s population at the time of the estimate. Now, post-foreclosure crisis, that number is probably even larger.
- A statewide online voter interface where Nevadans can register to vote and find polling place information.
- Election Day registration, to ensure that every eligible Nevadan may register and vote on Election Day.
This combination of modern voter registration systems and policies would ultimately make election administration easier and help as many eligible citizens vote as possible. It would also be a good call for Nevada’s taxpayers – states that have adopted modernized registration have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars on election administration, with savings likely to run into the millions after just a few years of implementation. Among the cost statistics that the Brennan Center has collected:
- It cost Arizona less than $130,000 and Washington just $279,000 to implement both online voter registration and automated voter registration at DMVs.
- Delaware’s paperless voter registration at Department of Motor Vehicles offices saves election officials more than $200,000 annually on personnel costs, above the savings reaped by partially automating the process in the mid-1990s. Officials anticipate further savings.
- Online and automated DMV registrations saved Maricopa County, Arizona over $450,000 in 2008. The county spends 33¢ to manually process an electronic application, and an average of 3¢ using a partially automated review process, compared to 83¢ for a paper registration form.
The version of Bill 108 that will be introduced this afternoon would give Nevada’s voters the 21st-century voter registration system they deserve.
Meanwhile, Nevada’s patchwork of laws and policies concerning the restoration of voting rights for people with past criminal convictions needs work, too. Nevada has become one of the most restrictive states in the Union when it comes to restoring the right to vote to those who have served their time, and the rules for recovering voting rights in Nevada are so complicated and variable, often neither the voter registration agency nor the voter himself knows when or how to reclaim this basic right of citizenship, according to this study from the ACLU of Nevada.
Nevada Assembly Bill 301 would make the rules for Nevadans who have served their time consistent, restoring voting rights upon completion of felony sentences of prison, probation, or parole, and notifying citizens of their right to vote when they become eligible.
These two bills give Nevada dual opportunities to both be a leader on voting rights and to make a thoughtful investment in a long-term cost-saver for taxpayers. As the Nevada legislature considers these bills this week, let’s hope legislators keep them moving in the right direction!
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights, Voting Rights & Elections, Voter Registration Modernization
By Erika Wood – 03/11/11
In less than an hour yesterday, Florida Governor Rick Scott denied the right to vote to hundreds of thousands, maybe as many as a million, Florida citizens, turning back the clock decades and making Florida the most punitive state in the country when it comes to disenfranchising people with criminal convictions in their past.
The Florida constitution denies the right to vote for life to anyone with a felony conviction, unless he is granted clemency by the governor. Essentially it gives the governor, an elected official, the power to decide who will (or won't) be allowed to vote in the next election.
The new clemency rules not only roll back reforms passed by former Governor Charlie Crist, they are far more restrictive than those in place under former Governor Jeb Bush. Under the new rules:
- People with even nonviolent convictions must wait five years after they complete all terms of their sentence before even being allowed to apply for restoration of civil rights.
- The clock resets if an individual is arrested for even a misdemeanor during that five-year period, even if no charges are ever filed.
- Some people must wait seven years before being able to apply, and must appear for a hearing before the clemency board.
- A provision allowing people to apply for a waiver of the rules, in place under Bush and Crist, was eliminated.
- Everyone applying for clemency must provide various documents with their application - Bush and Crist had made an exception for those applying for restoration of civil rights.
All of this has to happen just to have the opportunity to ask for one's rights back. Even after the waiting period, the application, and the hearing, anyone could be summarily denied with no reason or explanation. And if that happens, he would have to wait another two years before he can start the process all over again.
Governor Scott is playing three-card Monte with one of our most fundamental rights and steering his state straight back to Jim Crow. Florida's disenfranchisement law is a relic of a discriminatory past, enacted after the Civil War in response to the Fifteenth Amendment, which forced the state to enfranchise African-American men. The voting ban was a direct attempt to weaken the political power of African Americans, and it continues to have its intended effect today. Even prior to yesterday's change, African Americans were excluded from the polls at more than twice the rate of other Florida citizens. Not counting those currently serving a criminal sentence, 13% of the voting-age African-American population in Florida has lost the right to vote. Nearly a quarter of those who are disenfranchised in Florida are African-American.
These numbers are sure to go up under the new rules. The new "arrest-free" waiting period requirement will undoubtedly increase the disproportionate impact on minorities. Government statistics show that nearly 35% of all arrests, and 43% of drug arrests, in Florida in 2009 were African-American, even though African Americans make up just 16% of the state's population.
By shutting the door of democracy in the face of those trying to rejoin the community, Governor Scott ignored broad consensus among law enforcement and criminal justice professionals that allowing people to vote when they are back in the community encourages participation in civic life and helps rebuild ties to the community that motivate law-abiding behavior. The country's premier law enforcement organizations, including the American Correctional Association, the American Probation and Parole Association, the Association of Paroling Authorities International and the National Black Police Association have all passed resolutions supporting automatic restoration of voting rights.
Florida's law is now the most restrictive in the country. Since 1997, 23 states have either restored voting rights or eased the restoration process; nine of these states repealed or amended lifetime disenfranchisement laws. These changes have occurred under both Republican and Democratic governors. There has been a national recognition that harsh criminal disenfranchisement laws are a relic of a discriminatory past, are antithetical to the fundamental principles of our democracy, and do nothing to protect public safety or promote successful reentry.
Several times during the brief public meeting yesterday, Governor Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi referred to voting as "privilege" that should be "earned." But the right to vote is not something to be kept in the Governor's pocket, handed out only as a special treat to his favorite Floridians. To be sure, there once was a time in our country when only the privileged - wealthy, white men - were allowed to vote. But Americans have fought in the streets and in the courts to realize the true promise of our democracy - that all Americans should have a voice in our government. The Governor cannot bury that history under a bunch of bureaucratic hurdles.
Tags: Voting After Criminal Conviction, Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights
By Lee Rowland – 01/26/11
Cross-posted at The Huffington Post.
It took just a stroke of newly-elected Governor Terry Branstad's pen to turn the clock back on Iowans' voting rights by decades. Immediately upon taking office this month, Governor Branstad rushed to revoke Executive Order 42, a policy signed in 2005 by former Governor Tom Vilsack, which automatically restored voting rights to individuals with criminal convictions once they had completed their sentences. Now, Iowa has become one of just three states that permanently disenfranchise all citizens after a criminal conviction. Prior to Executive Order 42, Iowa disenfranchised adults at a rate twice the national average, and had the nation'shighest rate of African-American disenfranchisement. Governor Branstad has resurrected one of the most punishing and discriminatory voting bans in the country.
Currently, 5.3 million American citizens are not allowed to vote because of a criminal conviction. As many as 4 million of these people live, work and raise families in our communities, but because of a conviction in their past they are still denied the right to vote. Nevertheless, in the last decade 23 states have either restored voting rights or eased the restoration process. Governor Branstad, however, just placed Iowa in the shrinking company of just two other states - Virginia and Kentucky - that permanently disenfranchise their citizens.
A broad coalition of Iowans representing Methodists, Catholics, Quakers, social workers, juvenile justice advocates, and the disabled wrote to the Governor before he took office, urging him to reconsider his campaign promise to revoke Executive Order 42. Perhaps most notably, two well-regarded national law enforcement organizations, the American Correctional Association and the American Probation and Parole Association, wrote personally to the Governor urging him to continue the policy of restoring voting rights. As the American Correctional Association, the oldest and largest association of correctional officers in the world, explained: restoring voting rights "encourages [ex-offenders] to lead law-abiding lives, thereby reducing recidivism."
Although Governor Branstad chose to ignore the views of the law enforcement and community advocates, both Republicans and Democrats understand the need to address reentry on a national scale. Just last week, Newt Gingrich and Pat Nolan announced the "Right on Crime Campaign," a conservative effort to support reentry and community-based rehabilitation. Although the group does not yet have an official position on voting, Gingrich and Nolan note that a more community-oriented criminal justice model achieves huge reductions in both budgetary cost and recidivism. There is no question that the right to vote is the very definition of having a full stake in one's community.
In addition to being good policy, restoring voting rights is an important civil rights issue. Prior to Executive Order 42, Iowa permanently denied the right to vote to nearly 40% of the African-American population in the state. Compounding this racial disparity is the fact that the only way to get one's right to vote back is through an application to the Governor - but only after having paid all fees and fines associated with a criminal conviction. The only difference between an ex-offender who is entitled to apply for clemency and one who is not? An ability to pay. The state NAACP held apress conference denouncing this modern-day poll tax and its disparate impact on African-Americans. Many who go through the criminal justice system return to the community saddled with multiple debts. It often takes years if not decades to pay off the fees and fines. Voting should never be contingent on one's wealth or ability to pay.
In spite of hearing many voices of experience and reason, Governor Branstad has taken a giant step backward for democracy and fairness. Fortunately, the principles of democracy are winning the broader war: more states than ever have dismantled these misguided and discriminatory laws. And the full-throated reaction to Governor Branstad's order shows that Iowa has a strong coalition of leaders, advocates and activists eager to convince current and future policy makers that it's never too late to advance the cause of democracy.
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights, Voting Rights & Elections
By Erika Wood – 08/04/10
This summer the New York legislature took decisive action to create two important policy reforms: requiring that people in prison be allocated to their home communities for redistricting purposes; and requiring criminal justice agencies to provide voting rights information to people who are again eligible to vote after a felony conviction. While Albany has long been labeled “dysfunctional,” these particular reforms actually stand to make aspects of our state government models for democratic fairness and participation.
Both proposals are long overdue and have been introduced again and again and again, and both have garnered strong support in the legislature. Nevertheless, political wrangling repeatedly stymied their progress. This year, democracy trumped politics. Well, not quite. The legislation was pushed through in the budget revenue bill with no public hearing or debate. We will continue to criticize Albany for passing legislation behind closed doors with no opportunity for public input. But that’s for another post. Here, we hail the result.
The first reform assures that long under-represented communities have a full and fair voice in our state government. At present, incarcerated individuals are counted for federal Census purposes as residents where they are incarcerated rather than as residents of their home communities. In New York, where people are often imprisoned far from home and incarceration rates have skyrocketed in the last decade, this policy has produced increasingly harmful results. Public officials in prison districts have an incentive to build their districts on the backs of “ghost voters,” packing in prisoners who count toward the district size but who are not permitted to vote. So while officials who profit from the prison economy have an outsized voice in incarceration policy, the voting strength of the home communities – to which the vast majority of incarcerated people return – is diluted, resulting in under-representation in our state government.
The new legislation requires the Department of Correctional Services to provide the legislature with the necessary information to determine the home addresses for people in prison, and it instructs that incarcerated people should be allocated back to their home communities for redistricting purposes. This corrects a skew that has decimated the voting strength of poor and minority communities for decades, and assures that all communities in New York have equal representation and an equal voice in our government. Both Maryland and Delaware recently passed similar legislation.
The second policy reform is no less urgent. It will correct years of misinformation, promote successful reintegration and help protect public safety, while building civic participation among traditionally disenfranchised communities. Reliable information about voting rights is needed to address widespread, persistent, and well-documented misinformation in New York. Under New York law, people convicted of a felony lose the right to vote while in prison and parole. People on probation do not lose the right to vote. Once someone serves his maximum prison sentence or is discharged from parole, his right to vote is automatically restored. He need do nothing more than fill out a voter registration form like everyone else. Nevertheless, New York election officials have consistently misapplied the law and some have required people to provide unnecessary (and sometimes nonexistent) paperwork before being allowed to register. Not surprisingly, this confusion among election officials has affected the public. In 2005, researchers found that nearly 30% of people with criminal convictions surveyed in New York thought they would never be eligible to vote again.
New York’s new law is the latest in a national trend. Twenty-four other states and New York City already require certain state and local agencies to inform people when their voting rights are restored following a criminal conviction. It is a simple, workable policy that promises to have a major impact in assuring successful reintegration and reduced recidivism. Last year a retired New York parole chief testified before the New York Senate Elections Committee, “having the right to vote and learning how to exercise that right gives one a voice and a stake in the community; it promotes positive behavior and serves as a powerful conduit for making the transition from criminal to becoming a law abiding member of the community.”
The political jousting and escalating rhetoric of this seemingly endless New York budget season have been baffling, and at times excruciating. But this legislation shows that sometimes behind the shenanigans important policy reforms can be achieved. These two proposals in particular have the potential to make at least some aspects of our representative government a model for the rest of the country, and that’s not something we say lightly.
Tags: Democracy, Redistricting, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights, State-Based Advocacy
By Garima Malhotra – 05/13/10
The effort to restore voting rights in New York is gaining momentum. Today, over 100 New Yorkers sent postcards to their legislators and Governor Paterson urging them to restore the right to vote to people in New York who are on parole and probation.
New York law disenfranchises individuals in prison or on parole. As we have mentioned in previous posts, this law has a stark impact on people of color. A new Brennan Center report, titled Jim Crow in New York, confirms that the current criminal disenfranchisement law traces back to a century-long effort to keep African-American citizens out of the voting booth. As a result, over 80% of those denied the right to vote in the Empire State are African-American or Latino.
And New Yorkers are finally calling on our state leaders to end this injustice.
This writing campaign stems from a lively public conversation held at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture on this very issue. The discussion included Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts III from the Abyssinian Baptist Church of the City of New York, Hazel Dukes from the NAACP New York State Conference, Glenn Martin from the Fortune Society, and Columbia Law Professor Theodore Shaw.
Hopefully Albany will heed its constituents’ demands. There are several bills pending in both the Assembly and the Senate that would restore the right to vote to people with a prior criminal conviction.
Among them is legislation introduced by Assemblyman O’Donnell and Senator Thompson that restores voting rights to people on parole. The bills have been referred to the Assembly Committee on Election Law and the Senate Committee on Elections.
Senator Montgomery and Assemblyman Wright have also introduced the Voting Rights Notification and Registration Act that would help eliminate some of the confusion about who is eligible to vote. The bill would require the Department of Corrections and the Board of Parole to provide information to individuals about their voting rights once they regain eligibility. The bill passed the full Assembly in June 2009 and is currently pending in the Senate Elections Committee. (The Brennan Center testified in favor of this bill in April 2009). Similar bills have passed the Assembly twice before.
Contact us to request postcards to tell your elected officials that it is time to restore voting rights to people with prior convictions.
Tags: Democracy, NY Reform, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights, State-Based Advocacy
By Erika Wood – 04/15/10
Originally published in The Grio.
Just in case you had any doubt about his intentions in declaring April to be Confederate History Month, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell took a second giant step back in time this week. Not only is the Confederacy to be celebrated in Virginia, but its Jim Crow legacy is making a comeback too.
Governor McDonnell plans to require everyone seeking to have their voting rights restored following a non-violent conviction to write an essay outlining their contributions to society and the "reasons why you believe the restoration of your civil rights is justified." Applicants are thus asked to provide evidence that may - or may not - be evaluated under a completely arbitrary and ever shifting paradigm. In other words, prove the unprovable.
Virginia is one of only two states remaining (Kentucky is the other) that deny the right to vote for life to everyone with a criminal conviction, unless the individual applies for, and is granted, clemency from the governor. Virginia would also be the only state in 2010 to require a written essay.
The roots of Virginia's criminal disenfranchisement law are firmly planted in Jim Crow. During the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901-02, delegate Carter Glass (later a prominent U.S. Senator) described the criminal disenfranchisement provision as part of a plan to "eliminate the darkey as a political factor in this state in less than 5 years, so that in no single county...will there be the least concern felt for the complete supremacy of the white race in the affairs of government."
The law certainly has had its intended effect. More than 300,000 people have lost the right to vote for life in Virginia. One in five African-Americans, and one in four African-American men, is permanently disenfranchised in the Commonwealth. African Americans make up one fifth of Virginia's population, but over half of those denied the right to vote are African-American.
The application to get one's right to vote back has always been onerous in Virginia, and the number of people "approved" each year is tiny. Former Governor Tim Kaine approved the most applications in history, a whopping total that amounted to less than 2 percent of the disenfranchised population.
But McDonnell's newest requirement is not just another box to check in a bureaucratic process. It introduces an entirely arbitrary and subjective standard that allows the most powerful elected official in the state to play fast and loose with one of America's most fundamental rights. This essay exam is no different than the arbitrary, unpassable tests that politicians and government officials employed for decades after Reconstruction to keep African-Americans from voting. And it is no different than the notorious literacy tests employed during the same period. If you can't read, you can't write. All of these nefarious tricks were outlawed by Congress with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Another piece of federal legislation, the Democracy Restoration Act, is now pending before Congress. That bill would restore the right to vote in federal elections to every American citizen who is out of prison, living in the community.
According to the Washington Post, McDonnell's administration said the new essay requirement is designed to "put a human face on each applicant." The thing is, each applicant already has a human face. Each one is a person. Each one is an American. Each one is a Virginian. The Confederacy lost the battle to deny the rights of citizenship to African-Americans. No celebration of Confederate History Month, and no imaginary time machine, can change that.
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights, State-Based Advocacy
By Brennan Center for Justice – 04/11/10
by Deborah J. Vagins and Erika Wood
Originally published at ACS Blog.
In our recent Issue Brief for the American Constitution Society, The Democracy Restoration Act: Addressing a Centuries-Old Injustice, we examine an ongoing and deeply problematic barrier to the fundamental right to vote for millions of Americans. Currently, 5.3 million American citizens are denied this right because of a criminal conviction in their past. Nearly 4 million of those who are disfranchised are out of prison, working, paying taxes, and raising families, yet they are without a political voice.
With their roots in the Jim Crow era, many of these laws were originally enacted as a way to prevent African Americans from exercising their newly-won rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Their intended effects continue today. While 2.5% of the total U.S. voting age population is currently disfranchised, over 13% of African-American men are denied the right to vote on account of past criminal convictions -- this rate is seven times the national average.
Although in the past decade there have been significant reforms of these laws in the states, there is a compelling need for a federal standard. Some states disfranchise persons on parole or probation while others permanently disfranchise some or all who have completed their sentences. Several states even deny voting rights to persons who have incurred legal financial obligations or have only been convicted of misdemeanors.
This patchwork of laws governing voter qualifications often leads to confusion among both election and criminal justice officials about who is eligible to vote. As a result, countless individuals with convictions who are eligible to vote have been misinformed that they cannot vote, making the number of Americans impacted by criminal disfranchisement even greater. As we discuss in our Issue Brief, a federal standard is the only way to prevent future instances of this de facto disfranchisement and to ensure that all qualified Americans are able exercise their right to vote.
On March 16, 2010, the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties heard testimony from a broad group of experts, election officials, and advocates in support of such federal standard -- the Democracy Restoration Act (DRA). This legislation would restore voting rights in federal elections to the nearly 4 million Americans who have been released from prison; ensure that people on probation never lose their right to vote in federal elections; and notify people coming out of prison about their right to vote in federal elections. By establishing a federal standard for voter qualifications, the DRA would ensure that all citizens have a say in their communities, while at the same time, providing a bright line for government officials who provide voter registration information.
There has been incredible momentum behind reforming criminal disfranchisement laws in recent years. Law enforcement officials, members of the faith community, civil rights and legal organizations, and governors of both political parties have all advocated for the restoration of voting rights. Recently, The New York Times editorialized in favor of the DRA, writing that "it goes against one of democracy's most fundamental principles: that governments should rule with the consent of the governed."
However, without a national standard, the United States remains one of the only industrialized democracies where significant portions of its voting-age population are denied the ability to participate in civic life. International covenants and declarations recognize the right to vote as a fundamental human right and many countries' have determined that denying citizens with criminal convictions their fundamental rights is incompatible with the principle of equality in the protection of civil and political rights.
As we conclude in our Issue Brief, if passed, the Democracy Restoration Act would not just restore voting rights to millions of Americans; it would finally correct a centuries-old injustice.
The new Issue Brief for the American Constitution Society, The Democracy Restoration Act: Addressing a Centuries-Old Injustice [pdf], by Deborah J. Vagins and Erika Wood, examines an ongoing and deeply problematic barrier to the fundamental right to vote for millions of Americans. Currently, 5.3 million American citizens are denied this right because of a criminal conviction in their past. Nearly 4 million of those who are disfranchised are out of prison, working, paying taxes, and raising families, yet they are without a political voice.
With their roots in the Jim Crow era, many of these laws were originally enacted as a way to prevent African Americans from exercising their newly-won rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Their intended effects continue today. While 2.5% of the total U.S. voting age population is currently disfranchised, over 13% of African-American men [pdf] are denied the right to vote on account of past criminal convictions -- this rate is seven times the national average.
Although in the past decade there have been significant reforms of these laws [pdf] in the states,there is a compelling need for a federal standard. Some states disfranchise persons on parole or probation while others permanently disfranchise some or all who have completed their sentences. Several states even deny voting rights to persons who have incurred legal financial obligations or have only been convicted of misdemeanors.
Cross-posted at ACS blog.
Download the brief [pdf].
Deborah J. Vagins is Legislative Counsel for the Washington Legislative Office of the American Civil Liberties Union; Wood is Deputy Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights, Racial Justice
By Benjamin Rattner – 03/12/10
A new report by the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights finds that nearly one-in-four African Americans has lost the right to vote in Kentucky. The report makes clear that this shockingly high rate of disenfranchisement results from a racially biased criminal justice system and Kentucky’s archaic criminal disenfranchisement law.
Kentucky is one of the last two states [see pdf map] in the country (Virginia is the other) that denies the right to vote for life to anyone with a felony conviction, unless the current Governor restores the right through his clemency powers.
The Commission on Human Rights report covers a variety of subjects impacting African Americans in Kentucky, including graduation rates, employment by public agencies, socioeconomic status, unemployment rates, hate crimes, and interactions with the criminal justice system. Although the report acknowledges the progress that Kentucky has made in improving the status of African Americans as compared to a half century ago, it reveals that there is still a long way to go to eradicate racial bias.
Perhaps most troubling, the report reveals a racial bias deeply embedded in Kentucky’s criminal justice system. African Americans are three times more likely than whites to be arrested in Kentucky. Though African Americans make up just 7.7% of Kentucky’s population, they are nearly one-third of people who are incarcerated. The incarceration rate for African Americans in Kentucky is about five times that of whites. No matter how one views the numbers, Kentucky’s criminal justice system clearly has a disparate impact on African Americans.
The entrenched racial bias in Kentucky’s criminal justice system results in the mass disenfranchisement of African Americans. In 2004, Kentucky denied the right to vote for life to almost fifty thousand of its approximately two hundred thousand African American residents. Today, the disenfranchisement rate remains practically unchanged.
Because the current disenfranchisement law vests so much power in the Governor, the rate of disenfranchisement can vary widely depending on who is in office. A 2006 study by the League of Women Voters showed that the Governor approved rights restoration applications at half the rate of the one who preceded him. The number of applications for restoration nosedived primarily because the then Governor created several additional administrative hurdles for the restoration process, including requiring three character witnesses and an essay.
When Governor Beshear came into office, he took a positive first step by removing these burdensome requirements from the process. This is commendable, but only a first step. Kentucky’s General Assembly now has the opportunity to propose a constitutional amendment that would end the state's archaic and discriminatory scheme. However, the Senate version of the bill is sitting in Committee, where it has been for over a month. The Kentucky Senate should pass this bill and put the question on the ballot. Give Kentuckians who are eligible to vote the power and the opportunity to restore the vote to their fellow Kentuckians.
As the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights notes, there has been some progress in improving the status of African Americans in Kentucky. But the progress cannot hide that one-in-four African Americans in Kentucky cannot vote. It is time for Kentucky to modernize and simplify its voting rights restoration law.
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights, State-Based Advocacy
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