LINCOLN — Advocates for restoring voting rights of convicted felons mentioned Friday that such a step would take away a “punitive” stigma and enhance public security.
“People who find themselves engaged are much less more likely to reoffend,” mentioned State Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha, at a press convention sponsored by the Voting Rights Restoration Coalition.
About 20,000 Nebraskans can not vote as a result of they’re serving time in jail, are on parole for a felony crime or haven’t accomplished the present two-year ready interval to regain their rights to vote, serve on a jury or run for public workplace.
Invoice would restore rights upon launch
Wayne, who chairs the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee, has launched a measure this 12 months, Legislative Invoice 20, that might restore felons’ voting rights as quickly as they full their jail or parole sentence.
Felons who’ve accomplished their sentences mentioned at Friday’s press convention that the lack of voting rights disproportionately impacts communities of shade and leaves reformed felons, who now have jobs and personal houses, “marginalized.”
“It’s taxation with out illustration,” mentioned Demetrius Gatson of the ACLU of Nebraska.
The voting restoration coalition maintains that making felons wait two years after paying their debt to society is like rubbing salt right into a wound.
Additionally launched this 12 months was a proposed constitutional modification, LR 4CA, from Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh.
It will cast off the clause that requires convicted felons to lose their voting rights at any time. Solely these convicted of treason would lose their proper to vote beneath the proposal, which might require voter approval.
Two states, Vermont and Maine, and the District of Columbia at the moment don’t take away voting rights of somebody convicted of a felony crime.
Cavanaugh, who has launched related measures prior to now, known as eradicating voting rights “a penalty with out a objective.”
20,000 affected in Nebraska
Nicole Porter, senior director of advocacy for The Sentencing Challenge, mentioned that 4.6 million folks nationally, together with 20,000 in Nebraska, are denied the correct to vote as a result of they’re in jail for a felony or nonetheless on parole.
Porter mentioned denying the correct to vote is a side of the nation’s downside with over-incarceration.
A 2003 study done for the Brennan Heart for Justice at New York College instructed that there’s a hyperlink between civic engagement, voting, and a decrease fee of repeat crime.
The Voting Rights Restoration Coalition is a bunch of 28 organizations, together with the ACLU, Black Votes Matter, the NAACP and Civic Nebraska.
Jasmine Harris, director of public coverage and advocacy for RISE, a Nebraska jail reentry program, mentioned that with voting rights points comparable to voter ID being debated this 12 months, it’s a super time to handle the voting rights of felons.
