What a time to be alive. Despite the frustrations we are all feeling these past few days, weeks, months, hell all year, it’s a good thing to witness the pay off of hard work, especially when it deals with others’ rights.
On Tuesday, California voters pushed through an initiative that will restore the voting rights to felons on parole, The Hill reports.
Proposition 17 will re-enfranchise nearly 50,000 individuals, The Los Angeles Times reports. Prior to the approved ballot proposal, the California Constitution alienated state residents with felony convictions from voting if they were incarcerated or on parole. But it differed for those on probation, who were given their right to vote via the state’s constitution.
Vice presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris and Assemblyman and author of the initiative Kevin McCarty bolstered the decision and other prominent state democrats. It pushed through with a 59% voting percentage, the New York Times reported.
“Prop. 17 gives Californians the chance to right a wrong and restore voting rights for a marginalized community and people of color,” McCarty said. “This is good for democracy and good for public safety.”
“Today, in California there are 50,000 women and men who have completed their state prison sentence, are reintegrating back into society, working jobs and paying taxes, but are denied the right to vote,” California Secretary of State Alex Padilla (D) said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Yet research shows that in jurisdictions where voting rights are more easily restored, formerly incarcerated individuals re-offend at lower rates.”
Vermont is one state that allows incarcerated people to vote, but California has not reached this mark. However, it has taken a big step for those who have been incarcerated by giving back their voice and the right to vote. On the other hand, it does allow California county jail inmates their right to vote.
