[Courtesy of The Sentencing Project]

National: Proposal for Automatic Post Incarceration Voting Rights Restoration

The Brennan Center for Justice has released "Restoring the Right to Vote," which presents a rationale for the automatic restoration of voting rights for all individuals upon release from prison. The Center recommends that the 35 states that disenfranchise persons who are not currently incarcerated adopt the following vote restoration policies:

- Automatically restore voting rights upon release from prison;
- Ensure that criminal defendants receive notice of their loss of voting rights prior to their court proceedings as well as at the time of release;
- Assist eligible voters with registration;
- Synchronize statewide voter registration databases; and
- Educate eligible voters.

Author Erika Wood, the Deputy Director of the Democracy Program, writes: "When we ask people leaving prison to accept responsibility for reintegrating themselves fully into society, we cannot simultaneously continue to treat them as second-class citizens. With the obligation to obey the law should come the opportunity to influence the political process."

Wisconsin: Coalition Forms to Restore the Vote

Last week, approximately 40,000 Wisconsin residents were kept from the polls because of a state law that disenfranchises individuals with felony offenses. In an effort to reform current law, ACLU of Wisconsin Foundation has spearheaded an effort to form a coalition that promotes voting upon release. Current Wisconsin law states that felons who have been released from prison and those whose crimes were not serious enough to even warrant prison must wait their entire term of probation or parole before their right to vote is restored, the Daily Cardinal reported. "People could be rebuilding their lives for 1, 5, 10, or even 30 years and not be able to for example choose the school board member who will make critical decisions about their child's education," said Renee Crawford, Associate Director of the ACLU of Wisconsin.

In a recent poll, 70 percent of Milwaukee County's residents - which included Republicans and conservatives - supported the restoration of voting rights post incarceration. Andrea Kaminski, the Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, said that a move to automatically restore voting rights would also ease the election administration process. "If you can walk in the door at the polling place, you are not disqualified because of a felony. This will clarify eligibility requirements for election officials, who have a lot of responsibility and pressure in a high-turnout election," she said. For more coverage, see WisPolitics.com.

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Contact Information -- e-mail: zjennings@sentencingproject.org, web: http://www.sentencingproject.org.

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