COVINGTON, Ky. — Tuesday is Election Day in Kentucky, but not everyone in the state can vote. Research shows Kentucky is one of the strictest states in the country when it comes to voting rights for people convicted of a felony.
“I can't vote,” said Marcus Jackson, who has spent years advocating for the restoration of voting rights for formerly incarcerated people.
Jackson was convicted of a felony in 1992. His charges include second-degree assault. It’s a crime he maintains he did not commit.
“I was stuck in this horrible nightmare,” he said.
Kentucky law bars people convicted of certain felony crimes from voting in future elections, even after their sentences are complete. These crimes include treason, as well as select sexual offenses and violent crimes.
Jackson was released a few years later, but because of his conviction, he struggled to find work or qualify for financial aid for college.
“I went to the streets,” he said. “I began to do what people did in my community, and that was to trafficking drugs.”
He was incarcerated twice more. During his second incarceration, Jackson said he started to “dream again” after his unit administrator believed in his growth and progress.
“It was all these things that allowed me to feel like there is life outside of this felony conviction,” he said.
After his release in 2018, Jackson started working with nonprofits to assist with work surrounding the restoration of voting rights.
In March of last year, Jackson launched his own nonprofit organization, Advocacy Based on Lived Experience (ABLE), 31 years to the day after he was first sentenced to prison.
His work focuses on expanding voting rights for people who were formerly incarcerated and helping register eligible former offenders to vote.
He is still unable to.
“Primary election day, I'm still on the sideline,” he said. “Regardless of what I do today, regardless of who the person I am today.”
Kentucky is one of just 10 states that indefinitely ban people from voting if they’ve been convicted of certain felony crimes, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, unless they receive a governor’s pardon or complete another type of action.
“Our constitution authorizes that people can be treated as ‘other,’” Jackson said. “It says it's perfectly OK if you have a felony conviction to treat you as ‘other.’”
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear expanded voting rights to thousands of people who had committed certain felony offenses in 2019, but not all.
Jackson said the effort was a good start, but didn’t go far enough.
Several voters in Covington Tuesday told WCPO they agreed that voting rights should be expanded.
“They did their time so they should be free to vote,” Allen Carver said.
“People can change,” Tony Roedig said. “They might have made a mistake. They changed their lives. What's keeping them from voting then?”
Jackson is hopeful laws shift. He wants to expand rights and enshrine it in the state constitution.
“When your debt is paid, your rights are restored,” said Jackson. “That's all we've been asking for.”
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