The Voting Rights Notification and Registration Act
* Cross-posted from ReformNY
The
U.S. Senate’s passage by unanimous consent last week of the Second
Chance Act of 2007, which funds states and non-profits to provide job
training and other support services to the population leaving prison,
demonstrated that progressive reentry policies can unite both sides of
the aisle. It also reminded us of recent progress here in New York to
ease the reintegration of former offenders back into the community.
Like
the Second Chance Act, which had active support from prominent senators
from both parties, a New York bill dealing with notifying former
offenders about their right to vote seems to have similarly risen above
the political fray. The Voting Rights Notification and Registration Act enjoys a Democratic sponsor in the Assembly, Rep. Keith Wright, and a Republican sponsor in the Senate, Sen. Dale Volker.
The
bill aims to correct the de facto disenfranchisement of thousands of
New Yorkers who have had criminal convictions in their past and are
unaware of their eligibility to vote. In New York, voting rights are
restored upon completion of maximum prison or parole sentence, while
the right to vote is never lost by those on probation, in jail awaiting
a conviction, or convicted of a misdemeanor. But people who are serving
parole sentences are prohibited from voting in this state, meaning that
some people who are under supervision in the community are ineligible,
while others are eligible to vote. This confusion about who can and
cannot vote means that thousands of eligible New York voters sit out
Election Day because they falsely believe they are banned from the
rolls. The situation isn’t helped by the fact that county offices of
the Board of Elections—the very place where the record should be set
straight—have been known to routinely provide misinformation about
voting rights eligibility. (A survey
by the Brennan Center for Justice and Demos in 2006 revealed that
nearly one third of the state’s county election boards improperly asked
for documentation from former offenders before allowing them to
register to vote, and routinely misinformed probationers that they were
ineligible to vote).
The Voting Rights Notification and
Registration Act would establish protocols to notify convicted felons
of the status of their voting rights before, during, and after their
sentences. Correctional and parole agencies would be required to
provide voter registration forms to individuals upon completion of
their maximum prison or parole sentence. The Division of Probation and
Correctional Alternatives would become a voter registration agency, and
correctional facilities would be required to aid in the voting
procedures of qualified inmates. Furthermore, the bill attempts to
clear the haze of confusion surrounding voting rights eligibility by
tasking the Board of Elections with educating attorneys, judges,
election officials, probation and parole officers, and the public about
voting requirements and the new notice procedures.
As Glenn Martin of the Fortune Society pointed out in a recent El Diario op-ed,
although efforts at changing the eligibility rules themselves have
often failed in the Legislature, the new governor does have the power
to change the law disenfranchising parolees through executive order.
But in the meantime, we’ll take bipartisan support of the Voting Rights
Notification and Registration Act as a step in the right direction.
