#felon voting

[synille]

ok wait hold on why the fuck is it possible for a convicted felon to become president, but NOT possible for a convicted felon to vote? Be fucking forreal rn hfjkdjfgh. 

[reasonsforhope]

New Mexico has a sweeping new election law. Here are 6 key provisions in the bill

Legislation signed into law Thursday makes a host of changes intended to protect Native American voting rights in New Mexico. But it will al

"New Mexico will establish a permanent absentee voter list and remove barriers to voting on tribal lands under sweeping legislation signed into law Thursday [March 30, 2023] by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.

The measure also will automate voter registration during certain Motor Vehicle Division transactions and more quickly restore the voting rights of people exiting prison after a felony conviction. It was supported this year by Democratic legislative leaders and Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, after a similar measure died in the final moments of the 2022 session amid a GOP filibuster...

Republican lawmakers fiercely opposed the bill this year, too, contending automatic voter registration and other measures aren't necessary in a state that already allows same-day registration. But advocates of the legislation, House Bill 4, celebrated Thursday [March 30, 2023] as Lujan Grisham signed the bill during a ceremony at the Capitol with Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver; House Speaker Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque; and others.

Native American leaders described it as critical step toward protecting the voting rights of people on tribal land, especially those without a traditional mailing address. [More details in/moved to the last key point!]

In a signing ceremony at the Capitol, Lujan Grisham said the legislation would serve as a template for other states. "We want to send a message to the rest of the country — that this is what voting access and protection should look like," the governor said...

Absentee voting: Sign up once

The legislation calls for a permanent absentee voter list to be available in time for the 2024 elections. Voters could sign up once to get absentee ballots mailed to them before every statewide election. People on the list would also get notices mailed to them seven weeks before Election Day. Any election-related mail returned to the county clerk as undeliverable would trigger the voters' removal from the absentee list.

Automated voter registration

Automatic voter registration during some transactions at MVD [DMV] offices — such as when a person presents documents proving citizenship while applying for a driver's license — would begin in July 2025. Newly registered voters would be told they've been added to the voter rolls and that they'll get a postcard in the mail allowing them to decline the registration. For MVD customers already registered to vote, their address would be updated in the voting rolls if they renew their driver's license with a different address.

Restoration of rights

The legislation will restore the voting rights of felons when they leave custody rather than after they complete probation or parole. Inmates would be granted the chance to register or update their registration before release. The Sentencing Project, an advocacy group, estimated the measure will restore the voting rights of more than 11,000 citizens.

New holiday

The bill makes Election Day a school holiday.

Drop boxes

The legislation requires each county to have at least two secured, monitored boxes for people to drop off absentee ballots. State election officials are empowered to waive the requirement or grant requests for additional containers, depending on the circumstances of each county.

Native American voting

The proposal establishes a Native American Voting Rights Act.

[Moved here from earlier in the article]

The measure requires collaboration with pueblos, nations and tribes on establishing polling places, early voting locations and precinct boundaries. It also allows members to register to vote or receive absentee ballots at official tribal buildings — a necessity, supporters said, for residents who don't receive mail at home. "It is truly monumental reform," said Ahtza Chavez, executive director of NM Native Vote and a member of the Kewa Pueblo and Diné Nation. "It requires collaboration with tribes at all levels.""

-via Albuquerque Journal, March 30, 2023

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

North Carolina Court Immediately Gives Former Felons Right to Vote in 'Historic' Ruling Against Law with Racist Origins

“Today, we enlarged the ‘we’ in ‘We the people'," an attorney for the voting rights advocates said.

It should be automatically restored in every state. If we are gonna continue pushing the lie that our prisons are supposed to be "rehabilitative," they should consider their punishment as time served and upon release, their status should be that of a normal citizen again.

[spacebetweenthespaces]

💯💯💯

[thenib]

From Matt Lubchansky.

[chopper-witch]

I just want y’all to know I never knew your right to vote was revoked when you committed certain crimes (like felonies) until a story or article a few years ago about voting rights for criminals. Like the thought of that occuring never crossed my mind. Cause committing crimes doesn’t take away someone’s right to citizenship and most essential CIVIL liberties. Hell, I still am in utter confusion over why one time offender immigrants are deported (like I understand, but I just don’t get it) and so many other things that to me seem so stupid (most drug offenses that result in jail time, ICE, and the US military almost entirely).

[reasonsforhope]

16 States Made It Harder To Vote This Year. But 26 Made It Easier.

Two years ago, the biggest battles in state legislatures were over voting rights. Democrats loudly — and sometimes literally — protested as

"Two years ago, the biggest battles in state legislatures were over voting rights. Democrats loudly — and sometimes literally — protested as Republicans passed new voting restrictions in states like Georgia, Florida and Texas. This year, attention has shifted to other hot-button issues, but the fight over the franchise has continued. Republicans have enacted dozens of laws this year that will make it harder for some people to vote in future elections. 

But this year, voting-rights advocates got some significant wins too: States — controlled by Democrats and Republicans — have enacted more than twice as many laws expanding voting rights as restricting them, although the most comprehensive voter-protection laws passed in blue states. In all, 39 states and Washington, D.C., have changed their election laws in some way this year...

Where voting rights were expanded in 2023 (so far)

Unlike two years ago, though, we’d argue that the bigger story of this year’s legislative sessions was all the ways states made it easier to vote. As of July 21, according to the Voting Rights Lab, [which runs an excellent and completely comprehensive tracker of election-related bills], 834 bills had been introduced so far this year expanding voting rights, and 64 had been enacted. What’s more, these laws are passing in states of all hues.

Democratic-controlled jurisdictions (Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island and Washington) enacted 33 of these new laws containing voting-rights expansions, but Republican-controlled states (Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming) were responsible for 23 of them. The remaining eight became law in states where the two parties share power (Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia).

That said, not all election laws are created equal, and the most comprehensive expansive laws passed in blue states. For example: 

New Mexico adopted a major voting-rights package that will automatically register New Mexicans to vote when they interact with the state’s Motor Vehicle Division, allow voters to request absentee ballots for all future elections without the need to reapply each time and restore the right to vote to felons who are on probation or parole. The law also allows Native Americans to register to vote and receive ballots at official tribal buildings and makes it easier for Native American officials to get polling places set up in pueblos and on tribal land.

Minnesota followed suit with a law also establishing automatic voter registration and a permanent absentee-voting list. The act allows 16- and 17-year-olds to preregister to vote too. Meanwhile, a separate new law also reenfranchises felons on probation or parole.

Michigan enacted eight laws implementing a constitutional amendment expanding voting rights that voters approved last year. Most notably, the laws guarantee at least nine days of in-person early voting and allow counties to offer as many as 29. The bills also allow voters to fix mistakes on their absentee-ballot envelopes so that their ballot can still count, track the status of their ballot online, and use student, military and tribal IDs as proof of identification. 

Connecticut became the sixth state to enact a state-level voting-rights act, which bars municipalities from discriminating against minority groups in voting, requires them to provide language assistance to certain language minority groups and requires municipalities with a record of voter discrimination to get preclearance before changing their election laws. The Nutmeg State also approved 14 days of early voting and put a constitutional amendment on the 2024 ballot that would legalize no-excuse absentee voting.

No matter its specific provisions, each of these election-law changes could impact how voters cast their ballots in future elections, including next year’s closely watched presidential race. There’s a good chance your state amended its election laws in some way this year, so make sure you double-check the latest rules in your state before the next time you vote."

-via FiveThirtyEight (via FutureCrunch), July 24, 2023

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Virginia's GOP Governor Youngkin just revived a Jim Crow voting law designed to target Black voters

Stephen Wolf at Daily Kos: 

Republican Gov. Glenn Younkin recently revived a Jim Crow-era voting restriction with little fanfare by rolling back his predecessors' policy of automatically restoring voting rights to people with felony convictions who had completed their prison sentences. Until 2016, this law had left one in five Black Virginians banned from voting for life—four times the rate of whites. Now a felony conviction will once again mean lifetime disenfranchisement unless Youngkin personally restores an individual's voting rights through a case-by-case process he has yet to define.

As Bolts Magazine's Alex Burness details, Youngkin's move is a complete reversal of the practice of previous governors from both parties. In 2013, Republican Bob McDonnell restored voting rights to 8,000 people who had fully served their sentences for certain nonviolent offenses, but the biggest shift came in 2016, when Democrat Terry McAuliffe began automatically restoring the rights of all citizens who had completed their sentences—170,000 in total. Democrat Ralph Northam expanded those efforts in 2021, allowing everyone no longer in prison to vote again, which re-enfranchised 126,000 citizens.

Northam's policies put the state in line with a majority of the country, but Youngkin's about-face means that Virginia now has the nation's most restrictive felony disenfranchisement regime, an approach even more draconian than in several more conservative Southern states. And unless lawmakers or his successor changes course, the criminal justice system's racial disparities mean this restriction will once again see Black voters disenfranchised at higher rates than whites.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) reinstated a policy from the Jim Crow era that bars felons who had completed their prison sentences from voting, reversing the trend his predecessors from both parties who enacted reforms to make it easier for felons to be allowed to vote. Such a policy is nakedly racist, as it disproportionately hurts Black voters.