5 minute action
Use these points to educate family, friends and community members or as background for your letter-to-the-editor, episode screening, or media alert.
In a democracy, voting is a right — not a privilege. A strong and healthy democracy must include the voices of all its citizens.
- In the United States, over 5.4 million citizens, or one in 40 adults, is prohibited from voting due to a felony conviction. The vast majority of these disenfranchised Americans have already completed their sentences in full.
- The development of felony disfranchisement laws is inextricably linked with the history of racial discrimination in America, and continues to disproportionately impact communities of color.
- In most states, individuals with felony convictions are permitted eventually to regain the right to vote. However, confusion about widely disparate state laws, and lack of information about the often unwieldy process for regaining eligibility, continues to hinder millions from exercising their right to vote.
- Many other democratic nations permit people with felony convictions to vote in prison while the U.S. stands virtually alone in continuing to disenfranchise citizens after completion of sentence.
Some support from the experts:
-
United Nations Human Rights Committee, Concluding Observations, 2006
"The [United States] should adopt appropriate measures to ensure that states restore voting rights to citizens who have fully served their sentences and those who have been released on parole." -
Editorial, The New York Times, "Voting Rights, Human Rights," October 14, 2005
"Laws that deny citizens access to the polls should be employed only after painstaking deliberation—if at all—and never in a fashion that bars an entire class of people from the polls." -
Jack Kemp, former Congressman, HUD Secretary and Republican Vice-Presidential candidate
"It is a matter of simple fairness that once a person has completed the entire sentence, his or her voting rights should be restored...I am further convinced that the ability to fully participate as a productive citizen —including becoming a full voting member of society—reduces recidivism and is an incentive for prisoners to change their behavior for the good."
