Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday unequivocally doubled down on his position that prisoners should have the right to vote – as dozens of civil rights groups urged every other 2020 Democratic presidential candidate to adopt the same stance.
Indeed, our present-day crisis of mass incarceration has become a tool of voter suppression,” Sanders wrote. “Today, over 4.5 million Americans… have lost their right to vote because they have served time in jail or prison for a felony conviction.”
Sanders has faced continued backlash from right-wing media outlets, Republican lawmakers, and fellow Democratic presidential candidates since he expressed support for allowing prisoners to vote in a CNN town hall earlier this month.
But in his op-ed Tuesday, the senator from Vermont – a state that allows inmates to vote from prison – said he makes “no apologies for that position” because “voting rights for all citizens is a basic principle of democracy.”
“The point here is simple,” wrote Sanders. “At a time when voting suppression is taking place all across the country, we must make it clear that casting a ballot for American citizens is not a privilege. It is a right. If you’re an American citizen who is 18 years or older you must be able to vote, whether you’re in jail or not.”
If we are serious about calling ourselves a democracy, we must firmly establish that the right to vote is an inalienable and universal principle that applies to all American citizens 18 years and older. Period. 1/ https://t.co/d8H6Cntn3Q
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 30, 2019
When we look at the history of why our country has banned incarcerated people from voting, we must understand that the efforts to rob citizens of their voting rights was a legacy of slavery and continuing racist attitudes post-Jim Crow. 2/
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 30, 2019
Every 2020 presidential candidate should join Sanders in taking a stand for the right of prisoners and felons to vote, a coalition of more than 70 rights groups including the ACLU, the Drug Policy Alliance, and Color of Change said in an open letter on Tuesday.
Sanders is the only 2020 contender who has expressed support for allowing prisoners to vote.
Highlighting the “growing movement against felony disenfranchisement” nationwide – such as in Florida, where voters last year passed a constitutional amendment to restore the voting rights of 1.4 million people with past felony convictions – the advocacy groups asked: “Why disenfranchise people in prison to begin with? Why not let them continue to vote while they are incarcerated?”
“Ensuring that all Americans can vote is not just a vital affirmation of our national character, but an important policy to enhance public safety and reduce recidivism,” the groups wrote. “We thus ask each of you to publicly commit to ending felony disenfranchisement and to call for the restoration of voting rights for all citizens, regardless of their criminal history.”
Read the full letter:
Dear Presidential Candidates:
When Brianna Ross was 19, she was convicted of a felony for stealing diapers for her son. At her sentencing hearing, a judge told Ross that she’d face a lifelong punishment for her mistake: She would never be allowed to vote. Ross said she was made to feel “empty and unimportant” for decades, as she was forced to sit on the sidelines of democracy. But her fortune finally changed in 2016, when Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe restored voting rights to Ross and more than 150,000 formerly incarcerated Virginians. A year later, at age 53, Ross participated in her first election, where she says she finally had the opportunity to say, “I count.”
The right to vote is a fundamental component of American citizenship. Yet millions of Americans have been stripped of this right and made to feel like second-class citizens because of laws that exclude people from voting due to a criminal conviction. An estimated 6.1 million American citizens with felony convictions were barred from voting in the 2016 presidential election alone, a race that was decided by just 79,316 votes. In short, felony disenfranchisement is not just anti-democratic and bad for public safety, it is an unpopular practice that sprang from the most shameful era of American history, a vestige of our past wildly out of step with international norms. And now is the moment for its abandonment.
Felony disenfranchisement is as senseless as it is cruel. It subverts a person’s fundamental right to participate in the democratic process. We know that returning citizens are far less likely to be re-arrested when we support them in their transitions back home. A large body of research shows that letting formerly incarcerated people vote fosters skills and capacities which are rehabilitative, and is significantly correlated with reducing re-arrest, incarceration, and self-reported criminality. Ensuring that all Americans can vote is not just a vital affirmation of our national character, but an important policy to enhance public safety and reduce recidivism.
Americans are finally starting to push back against this injustice. Most Americans now think it’s commonsense that people with prior felony convictions should be allowed to vote after they’ve completed their sentences. Last year, a supermajority of Florida voters endorsed a state constitutional amendment to end permanent disenfranchisement for people who have completed their sentences. Other states already allow formerly incarcerated people to regain their right to vote, but they vary in how they restore those rights,and seven more states have introduced bills in 2019 that would abolish felony disenfranchisement.
This growing movement against felony disenfranchisement is a promising endorsement of American values, but it raises a key question: Why disenfranchise people in prison to begin with? Why not let them continue to vote while they are incarcerated?
Throughout Europe, people in prison retain their right to vote while incarcerated. Unlike most American states, these 28 countries have enacted various measures to ensure that incarcerated people remain fully engaged in society. People who are incarcerated in Germany, for example, not only vote, but earn wages on par with the rest of the workforce. They have the right to be incarcerated near their families, and, upon release, have access to a “network of rights meant to promote their integration with and membership in German society.” In Europe, mandatory and permanent disenfranchisement is as unusual as it is anti-democratic.
America, too, can honor every citizen’s right to vote and still flourish. Maine, Vermont, and Puerto Rico treat the right to vote as a bedrock democratic principle for all citizens, including those in prison.Advocates, people in prison, and even corrections officials say voting allows incarcerated people to maintain a sense of connection to the community and society at large, which in turn helps prepare them for life after prison. Protecting every American’s right to vote isn’t only popular, it’s also endorsed by those with the most intimate knowledge of our criminal legal system.
This practice has deep-seated roots in our Jim Crow past, and its modern persistence echoes historical pain. Felony disenfranchisement laws gained popularity in the post-Reconstruction era: shortly after black men gained the right to vote, disenfranchisement laws were codified to systematically strip away black votes. States where African Americans made up a greater portion of the prison population were significantly more likely to adopt felony disenfranchisement. As these laws spread, states began creating lists of crimes they believed were most likely to impact black voters. Felony disenfranchisement became a tool to limit the political power of black communities and individuals to elect representatives to advocate for their interests.
Even today, communities of color are disenfranchised at much higher rates than white voters. In the 2016election, 7.4 percent of all African American adults were disenfranchised as a result of a felony conviction, a rate four times higher than the rest of the population. In Kentucky, a full quarter of the black electorate cannot vote today due to felony disenfranchisement. Latinx communities are also disenfranchised at rates greater than the general population. These racial disparities turn whole communities into second-class citizens, undermining faith in the fairness of our government, our elected officials, and the notion that all people are treated equally under the law.
We need a President who will stand up for the right of all Americans to vote. We thus ask each of you to publicly commit to ending felony disenfranchisement and to call for the restoration of voting rights for all citizens, regardless of their criminal history.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss this further, please contact Amani Sawari, National Right 2 Vote Campaign, at amanisawari@gmail.com.
Sincerely,
ABO Comix
Abolitionist Law Center
American Civil Liberties Union
American Homeless Society
Anthony Rella PLLC
Anti-Eviction Mapping Project
Brooklyn Defender Services
Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at NYU School of Law
Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice
Chicago Animal Save
Chicago Community Bond Fund
Chicago Votes Action Fund
Citizen Action of New York
Color Of Change
Common Cause
DACC (Direct Action Coordinating Committee) at Amherst College
Data For Progress
Demos
Disability Advocates for Rights and Transition
Drug Policy Alliance
DSA MKE
Emancipation Initiative
Fierce Allies
Food Empowerment Project
For the People – Saint Louis
Franciscan Action Network
GAPIMNY—Empowering Queer & Trans Asian Pacific Islanders
Green Party of Allegheny County
Greenpeace USA
Harvard Law School National Lawyers Guild
Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign
Helping Educate to Advance the Rights of Deaf Communities – HEARD
Illinois Coalition Against Torture
Indivisible Midlands (SC2)
JustLeadershipUSA
LatinoJustice PRLDEF
Let’s Get Free: The Women and Trans Prisoner Defense Committee
LinkUp
Millions For Prisoners New Mexico
National Lawyers Guild
National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund
New Jersey Institute for Social Justice
North Carolina Green Party
North NJ Democratic Socialists of America
Northwest Detroiters For Social Justice
Nu View Consulting
Pitt Prison Outreach
Popular Resistance
Princeton Students for Prison Education and Reform
Prison Policy Initiative
Project NIA
Quixote Center
Racial Justice Action Center
Real Justice PAC
Rid Racism Milwaukee
Right2Vote Campaign
San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper
Seattle Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee
Showing Up for Racial Justice
Southern Center for Human Rights
Southern Poverty Law Center
Students Against Mass Incarceration
Students for Prison Education and Reform
The Joseph Spencer Pratt Justice Reform Advocacy Group
The Justice Collaborative
The North Star
The Queer Palestinian Empowerment Network
UMass Prison Abolition Collective
Valley Justice Coalition
WESPAC Foundation, Inc
WNY Peace Center
Worth Rises
Yoga For Peace, Justice, Harmony With The Planet
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