More ex-felons are looking forward to stepping into a voting booth this upcoming election as US states are planning to give back their voting rights. They have lost their right to vote as some were convicted for drugs and other crimes.
According to Business Insider, Baltimore community organizer Perry Hopkins is thrilled that the U.S. states are giving ex-felons their voting rights. It will be Perry's very first experience of voting this election season.
The 55-year old organizer allegedly lost his never-exercised right to vote as he was convicted for drugs and other crimes. He's granted to exercise his right to vote just last month when Maryland joined the growing list of U.S. states that has granted ex-convicts to vote.
"To have the right to vote now is empowering. I'm stoked," stated Hopkins, who spent a total of 19 years in prison for non-violent crimes. He was also one of the 40,000 residents in the state to regain his right to vote from a legislative action.
"I plan to vote in every election possible. I'm voting for mayor, I'm voting for city councilman in my district, and, yes, I'm voting for president," Hopkins added. The ex-felon hopes to vote for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is the front-runner in the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination on November 8.
Sentencing Project, which is a prison advocacy group, noted that Hopkins is among the 800,000 Americans who have regained the right to vote in the last two decades. This is the result after two dozen states have eased the bans on felons voting in an election, as claimed by Reuters.
MYCN2 reported that the Senate Bill 299, which is sponsored by Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, proposes a voter referendum. If it will be passed, the bill would provide the General Assembly the authority to establish parameters to regain the voting rights of some non-violent felons who have already served their sentences.
"We need to have that authority granted to us by the people by amending the constitution, then we can set the parameters of what should and what should not be an automatic restoration of civil rights or have a waiting period or be forever barred from a restoration of civil rights," Stivers stated.
Meanwhile, the restoration of the voting rights has attracted support from both the Democrats and the Republicans as a way to improve the prisoners' reintegration into society. The advocates also claimed that it is a way of promoting racial justice, as African-Americans are charged of crimes and sent to jail at about twice the rate of the total U.S. population.
