This time last year prisoners in 17 states across America had just completed the National Prison Strike. This year we spent the Black August highlighting the powerful work being done from all corners of the nation towards an end to felony disenfranchisement, the National Prison Strike’s 10th demand, and coincidentally 17 states have also introduced legislation within that same vein. These 17 states include California (ACA6), Colorado (HB 1266), Connecticut (SB 25 & 53), DC (B23 324), Georgia (SR 153), Hawaii (HB 1506 & 1503), Iowa (SF 65), Kentucky (SB 90 & 91), Massachusetts (SB 12), Minnesota (HF 40 & SF 856), Mississippi (HB 637), New Jersey (A 3456 & S 2100), New Mexico (HB 57) New York (AB 4987 & SB 1931), Tennessee (HB 547 & SB 36, 589), Texas (HB 1419) and Washington (SB 5207). The majority of these bills were assigned to committee and some were given a floor vote, but the introduction of voting rights restoration legislation in more than a third of the country one year after prisoners’ national protest is extraordinarily significant. Our collective energy creates a powerful force and we thank each signer of the Right2Vote petition for their participation and support.
I wanted to provide a few campaign updates. On August 21 Illinois Governor Pritzker signed SB2090, the Re-Entering Citizens Civics Education Act, into law. On this historic August 21st day Chicago's largest jail became the first incarceration facility to become a permanent polling location. We also witnessed California’s ACA6 pass the assembly floor and move to the Senate! Along with that, Massachusetts' petition to restore prisoners’ voting rights has officially been certified by the attorney general and MassPOWER organizers are currently collecting petition signatures with the goal of 81,000. If you are in or know someone living in Massachusetts please connect to MassPOWER to support their statewide canvassing efforts. Finally, the Brennan Center invited the Right2Vote Campaign to their exclusive Voting Rights Symposium at NYU highlighting the New Jersey Institute's S2100, where Governor Phil Murphy advocated for voting rights restoration and shared his excitement for signing S2100 into law as it makes its way through Congress.
We collected over 67,000 signatures on the national petition to restore prisoners voting rights! Though this petition must come to a close, this national movement to restore and protect the rights of citizens impacted by felony disenfranchisement is a multi-year campaign that will go on beyond 2019. We still need you to be an active member of this New Suffrage Movement as we continue to justify our commitment to full restoration, a few of our partners have created wonderful resources that outline the problems with maintaining a democracy plagued by carve outs while also presenting concrete solutions to the complex issue. I've included those resources below:
For any one curious about how they or a loved one might be impacted by felony disenfranchisement, you can visit RestoreYourVote.org (or RecupereSuVoto.org for Spanish speakers) to privately check your voting rights status in in all 50 states D.C. or Puerto Rico without using any personal information.
To continue to receive updates and stay connected to the Right2Vote Campaign as the movement progresses
Visit http://sawarimi.org/right-2-vote-campaign
Subscribe yourself or an incarcerated loved one to the Right2Vote Report
Follow @PrisonerLed or @Sawarimi on Twitter or @Sawarimi on Instagram