Editorial: Don't prohibit convicts who've served their time from voting

CBC Editorial: Friday, Nov. 3, 2023; editorial #8885

The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company

Nineteen months ago one of the remaining vestiges of North Carolina’s Jim Crow laws to deny African American’s their full rights seemed to finally be erased from state statutes. Felons who’d served their active prison sentences could no longer be prohibited from registering and voting.

The March 2022 state Superior Court order stated laws to prevent felons from voting after they’d been released from prison were “elements of the original, racist 1877 legislation: the disenfranchisement of all people with any felony conviction. … The denial of the franchise to persons living in the community after release from any term incarceration. … continues to carry over and reflect the same racist goals that drove the original 19th century enactment.”

Thirteen months later, the state’s supreme court decided to harken back to the Jim Crow days – removing the brief interlude that allowed released felons to vote. On a partisan 5-2 vote, the Republican justices rejected the lower court’s earlier findings and flatly declared felons “have no fundamental right to vote” and whatever the racist intent to the initial 1877 law, it had been whitewashed by the 1973 revision. “It is not unconstitutional to insist that felons pay their debt to society as a condition of participating in the electoral process,” the court ruled.

The fact of the matter, as presented in court is that of the more than 56,000 felons on probation, parole or other forms of post-release supervision, more than 42% are African American. African Americans comprise 20% of the state’s electorate. White voters make up 65% of the state’s electorate but account for 52% of the felons denied voting rights.

“African Americans in North Carolina are denied the franchise at a rate 2.76 times as high as the rate of White people with 1.24% of the African American voting-age population being denied the franchise, whereas only 0.45% of the White voting-age population is similarly disenfranchised,” wrote Justice Anita Earls in her dissent. The reality, as she concluded, is that the law her fellow justices upheld has a “disproportionate effect on African Americans.”

For a brief nine months, felons who’d served their time and were out of prison to be reintegrated into their communities, were allowed to fully participate in their civic obligations – the most significant of which is voting.

No longer. Those felons who did register and voted in the 2022 general election have subsequently had their voter registration revoked. They are now ineligible to vote.

On the appeal from the state’s legislative leaders who were defendants in the case, the state Supreme Court’s ruling has doubly regressive impacts. It perpetuates a tragic legacy of racial discrimination while diminishing the significance of voting as a fundamental obligation – not simply a right – of all living in society.

The issue has also made its way to federal courts, where a Nov. 14 hearing in Durham could determine if the state high court ruling will stand or if the state law will be set aside so felons, who have completed serving their prison time, can vote after they are released.

North Carolina laws and policies should work to encourage convicts who have served their time behind bars to fully and effectively reintegrate into society – to understand and engage in the obligations to their community. Those supervising probation and parole should have the ability to encourage voter registration, not to prevent it.

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