Locking Up New Voters

The red-faced man slows his shopping cart of empty beer cans and stares in disbelief at the white form just thrust into his hand.

"I can't," he mutters, shaking a head of unkempt, yellowish hair. "They told me I can't."

Caylor Roling, a tall, bespectacled young woman, who chased down her new friend through a crowded Food 4 Less parking lot, shakes her head back.

"That's not true," she almost shouts. "In Oregon, even if you have a past felony conviction, you can!"

Roling – an organizer with the Western Prison Project (WPP), a prison reform group in the midst of a voter registration drive aimed at convicted felons – smiles as the man trots away, curiously eyeing the registration form she handed him.

Since the 2000 election, a wellspring of attention has focused on felony disenfranchisement. Currently, nearly 4 million Americans cannot vote because they're incarcerated or live in a state that strips felons of their voting rights even after they've been released, according to The Sentencing Project, a Washington D.C.-based prison reform organization.

But what of the millions of felons in the United States who can vote? Aside from Maine, Vermont and the District of Columbia, which allow all residents to vote even if they're locked up, 34 states let felons go to the polls at some point after their release. According to experts, however, the majority of these ex-felons probably don't, thanks to complex suffrage laws that differ by state, coupled with a dearth of information about those laws.

In New York, for example, parolees can't vote but those on probation can; in Oregon anyone can vote once they're out of prison; and in Washington, only ex-felons convicted after 1984 can vote, and they have to complete parole, probation and pay any outstanding fines first.

Ex-felons oftentimes have no idea that they've been re-enfranchised, and when they do try to vote, clueless election officials in some cases have refused to let them.

This election year, no one's taking any chances. Prison reform groups like WPP, along with voting rights organizations, are working in unprecedented numbers across the country to educate and register ex-felons and to ensure that election officials get it right. Particularly in swing states like Oregon that grant unconditional suffrage to ex-felons – Al Gore squeezed out a victory here by just 6,700 votes in 2000 – the effort conceivably could impact the election.

Christopher Uggen, a sociologist at the University of Minnesota, says there are probably close to 9 million ex-felons in the United States. "Many are still unaware that their rights have been restored or are hesitant to vote because they would not like to risk being turned away at the polls," he told In These Times.

While it's difficult to predict the voting patterns of a population that hasn't yet flexed its political muscle, Uggen estimates that, based on sex, age, race, marital status and income, some 70 percent to 80 percent of all ex-felons (and felons) in the United States would vote Democratic. This is in large part because a tremendous percentage of those who are or have been incarcerated are black; 90 percent of African American voters cast their ballots for Gore in 2000.

WPP's campaign, called the VOICE Project, is focusing on Oregon, Montana, Utah and Nevada. Since 2002, organizers have been registering voters at halfway houses, canvassing areas identified as having a high percentage of ex-felons, and disseminating information through probation and parole officers – not to mention calling elections and corrections officials to make sure they don't screw it all up.

In Oregon alone, WPP Executive Director Brigette Sarabi says there are about 30,000 men and women on parole, probation or under some sort of post-release supervision, and thousands more with felony convictions, most of whom have no idea they can vote.