Since 1997, at least 16 states, including battleground states such as Pennsylvania, have reformed their felon voting laws, but there is little coordination between election offices and the criminal justice system, which could cause confusion on election day.
Andres Idarraga says that voting is the most significant form of political expression in a democracy. In 1998, at age 20, he was convicted as a cocaine dealer. He had never cast a vote before then.
When he was released in 2004, he discovered that under Rhode Island law he would not be eligible to vote until age 58. He joined the state’s Right to Vote campaign and helped organize residents to approve a referendum that restored voting rights to released convicts.
Determined to turn his life around, Idarraga graduated from Brown University with degrees in economics and literature, and started at Yale Law School this fall. He voted for the first time in the primaries and was excited about exercising his franchise in the presidential elections.
Felony disenfranchisement is a controversial issue and hasn’t featured in the presidential campaigns — even though they could benefit from the new voter pool — because neither side wants to appear to be soft on crime, activists say.
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