Forty-eight years ago today, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) into law, codifying the 15th Amendment’s guarantee of the right to vote free from racial discrimination.
Gov. McDonnell recently announced that VA is taking a first step in restoring voting rights to people with criminal convictions in their pasts. According to McDonnell, this will restore the right to vote to over 100,000 people. But we can go further.
It is 2013, and our democracy should not have to suffer through another cycle of rancorous, partisan, and business-as-usual politics — there is too much we need to fix.
The Democracy Restoration Act would restore federal voting rights to the 6 million Americans not allowed to vote due to a past criminal conviction — like me.
Brian Pearson, a VOCAL-NY member from Queens who is formerly incarcerated, delivered the following statement during the launch of the New York Voter Empowerment Act of New York
Charles "Chuck" Colson was Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon in the 1970s. He later became a noted Christian leader who fought for the rights of prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families, and worked to reform the criminal justice system.
Kentucky can redeem itself for its archaic law that permanently disenfranchises people with criminal convictions — even after their release from prison.
Support H.B. 70, a bill that would allow Kentuckians to vote on a referendum this November to restore voting rights to former prisoners and probationers after they have completed their sentences.
