Voter Suppression in Kentucky

Voter suppression in ky has been flying under the radar for several reasons: our voter id law is pretty lax compared to others, the presidential race isn't competitive and we have no senate race.

 

But KY is still disenfranchising 250,000 citizens - more than one in five African-Americans. Twenty percent.

 

Aura Bogado and Meta Mendel-Reyes at The Nation: 

Kentucky is one state that makes it nearly impossible for former felons to vote, and a grassroots group there has been challenging this form of disenfranchisement. If the numbers nationwide are dismal, it’s even worse in Kentucky, where nearly a quarter million people have lost their right to cast a ballot.

Meet Meta Mendel-Reyes. She’s on the Steering Committee of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a statewide, grassroots social justice organization that seeks to restore the right of former felons to vote. She explains that former felons who have already served their time are subjected to an onerous process to attempt to get their voting rights restored—but even that process doesn’t guarantee they’ll be able to cast a ballot.
—Aura Bogado

Go to Jail, Lose Your Vote

Rev. Damon Horton wasn’t always a minister. More than a decade ago, he was a gang member, and a dealer who was arrested in 2003 and 2004 for drug trafficking. He was convicted and sentenced to twelve years in prison. While Horton was incarcerated, he felt the call to the ministry. After completing 20 percent of his sentence, he was released on parole in 2006. Soon after, he married, started a family and became a minister. Yet despite turning his life around, there is one act of citizenship closed to him: he is not allowed to vote. “I can pay taxes again,” Horton says, “but I can’t vote or have a real voice in the government.”

And Horton is not alone. More than one in five African-Americans in Kentucky can’t vote because they have been convicted of a felony. In most states, after people have served their time, they are given their voting rights back. Not in Kentucky, where more than 243,000 residents have lost the right to participate in democracy.

Under the state constitution, former felons have to petition the governor in order to have their rights restored. It’s a tricky process that takes time and doesn’t guarantee a result, partly because each governor sets up his or her own procedure during his or her tenure.

The ridiculous and duplicative paperwork current Governor Beshear requires is bad enough, but the power given to the local Commonwealth Attorney means that getting your rights back takes between 60 days and never.

Making the process even more complicated is the fact that many elections officials and corrections staff don’t know the process themselves. According to Dave Newton, KFTC organizer, “Many former felons don’t even realize that they can get their voting rights back.”
SNIP
Kentucky effectively targets African-Americans, other people of color and low-income folks who will be unable to cast a ballot because of a past conviction for which they have already served their time. With an upcoming election that threatens to disenfranchise people through voter ID laws, let’s not forget the millions of former felons who have already been kept from voting.

At a rally early this year for House Bill 70, which would restore voting rights to felons who have served their time, I heard several people tell of youthful non-violent drug offenses that led to a lifetime as a non-citizen because they were coerced into pleading to a felony, but never told it meant they lost the right to vote forever. Some of them were white, but that doesn't make disenfranchisement any less racist.