Ex-offenders
find a reason to reclaim the vote
WASHINGTON
POST
By Mary
C. Curtis
Should
American citizens who have been convicted of crimes and served their time have
their right to vote restored?
From
left: 2 Chainz, Kanye West, Rosci and Terrence J in New York City in April.
Rapper 2 Chainz has his voting rights after a conviction on drug possession when
he was 15. (Craig Barritt - GETTY IMAGES)
The
question is a political issue, part of a voting-rights debate that is being
fought in the states and among political candidates. To ex-felons, it can be a
personal challenge, as well: Will their votes matter, and why should they
care?
The
rapper 2 Chainz, made the case for the vote at a pre-show stop at the Urban
League of Central Carolinas in Charlotte on Saturday. He told his story for 40
young people, a few with criminal records. The 35-year-old Atlanta-based
performer said he was first arrested at age 15 for cocaine possession. When it
came to voting, he thought he was “counted out” and didn’t know he was eligible
until he picked up a brochure at a registration drive at an Atlanta mall. Along
with 10 friends, he recruited from his recording studio, “I walked around with a
sticker the whole day” they voted.
“I
felt rejuvenated,” he said. “I felt like a citizen again.”
To
supporters, restoring voting rights to former felons is a logical and positive
step, a way to give them a stake in the world outside prison walls. That was the
point of the weekend workshop organized by the Washington-based Hip-Hop Caucus and its “Respect My Vote” campaign, a nonpartisan
mobilization and education effort focused particularly on young voters.
Denying
former felons the vote, “ultimately denies rights to a class of people based on
previous actions,” according to William Harding, a Charlotte attorney, who also
spoke at the even. “Once a person has paid his debt to society, it’s important
that he is integrated back into society,” he told me. The ex-inmates are more
involved, Harding said, and their recidivism rate is
lower.
He
explained that in North Carolina, anyone who completes all parts of a sentence
for a felony conviction, including probation and parole, can register to restore
the voting right that was lost, though it is a crime to register before the
sentence is completed. Those convicted of a misdemeanor do not lose their right
to vote.
The
law puts North Carolina somewhere between Maine and Vermont, where felons never
lose their voting rights, and states such as Kentucky and Virginia, which
require the governor to approve an application. (In Virginia, GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell has
stepped up the pace to restore rights.) In some states, only the most serious
crimes are punished with permanent disenfranchisement.
Because
the courts have determined voting is a fundamental rather than constitutional
right, Harding said, it’s left up to the states, and he thinks that’s wrong.
“It’s not as though they’re somehow going to taint the process,” he said.
“Ultimately, the laws affect them, too.”
The
issue can be used to label an opponent soft on crime, as Republican Rick
Santorum found out in the primaries when a Mitt Romney Super PAC ad
attacked – and in Santorum’s view, distorted -- his position advocating voting
rights for ex-felons who completed their obligations. At a debate before the
South Carolina primary, Santorum challenged Romney and pointed out the former
Massachusetts governor’s once similar stance. Romney answered that he governed a
largely Democratic electorate then, and stated his current view that “people who
committed violent crimes should not be able to vote, even upon coming out of
office."
It’s
an issue with a racial dimension, as African American men are disproportionately
affected. In her 2010 book “The New Jim Crow: Mass
Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” Michelle Alexander places current
policy – including a disparity in prosecution and sentencing rates,
particularly for drug-related offenses -- within a history of America’s
disenfranchisement of African American voters. The University of Michigan Law
School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School
of Law released an analysis this week that
counted more than 2,000 people in the United States who were falsely convicted
of serious crimes and then exonerated in the past 23 years. The universities
used their archive to study the details of 873 of those exonerations. Nine out
of 10 in that group were men, and half were African
American.
On
Saturday, Brandi Williams, the Hip Hop Caucus Charlotte coordinator, recited
statistics from the nonprofit Sentencing Project that showed lower N.C.
registration and voting rates among those with felony convictions. It’s “not
good for democracy,” she said.
In a
close 2012 presidential election, when every vote in swing states such as North
Carolina promises to be crucial, both parties are concerned about the issue. In Florida, Republican
Gov. Rick Scott and other state officials last year rolled back the 2007 rule
change by then-GOP Gov. Charlie Crist that made it easier for many ex-felons to
regain the right to vote. Now even nonviolent offenders have to wait five years
before applying for the chance to have their rights restored. "It clearly has
the effect of suppressing the vote as we go into a presidential election cycle,"
Howard Simon, executive director of the Florida chapter of the American Civil
Liberties Union, told The Washington Post then.
Participants
at the Charlotte event could fill out registration forms and a “Respect My Vote”
pledge, which included space to list the issues they care about. Patrick Graham,
executive director of the Urban League of Central Carolinas, said the event was
not to advocate for any candidate or position, but to emphasize the message “to
never let your past determine your future.” He made the Urban League’s computer
lab and resources available for anyone to research candidates and
issues.
Graham
said some with past felony convictions are too willing to give away their voting
rights. “They don’t look on them as a priority.” He told the workshop
participants, “It’s so important you follow through with
this.”
At
first, 23-year-old Dimitros Jordan said he was turned off by politics. “Nothing
is really going to change,” he said, preferring to “put it in God’s hands.”
After attending a question-and-answer session in which some pointed out that it
was civic action that led to charges for George Zimmerman after he shot Florida
teen Trayvon Martin, Jordan changed his mind. He served five months as a
teenager for armed robbery, he said, but now works in construction and coaches
children in summer camp. Jordan said he is determined to stay out of trouble –
and to vote. “I’m going to tell my friends,” he said.
Patrick
Chambers, 26, of Charlotte, has never voted. “I didn’t think I could” after a
felony conviction, he said. He intends to vote for the first time in November.
“People in the neighborhood are quick to accuse the government, ‘They don’t do
this, they don’t do that,’” he said. “It’s really our fault if we don’t
vote.”
Mary
C. Curtis, an award-winning multimedia journalist in Charlotte, N.C., is a
contributor to The Root, Fox News Charlotte, NPR, Creative Loafing and Nieman
Watchdog blog. She has worked at The New York Times, Charlotte Observer and as
national correspondent for Politics Daily. Follow her on Twitter:
@mcurtisnc3
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