Nevada is one of 12 states that restrict voting rights even after a person has served his or her prison sentence and is no longer on probation or parole. Based on the most recent estimates Nevada’s law disenfranchises over 89,000 people: 4% of the entire state-wide voting-age population but 11.76% of the adult black voting-age population. More than half of disenfranchised African Americans are post-sentence, meaning they can petition a court to have their rights restored. Nevada also has a relatively complicated system for restoration of voting rights for people with criminal records that depends in part on the type of record – see the description at the end of this blog. There is a great new project and resource for determining if someone is eligible to have their franchise rights restored at Restore Your Vote, a project of the Campaign Legal Center. On the site you can download a Toolkit that walks people through the eligibility issues and the rights restoration process.

Here is the actual description of eligibility rules from the website of the Clark County Registrar:

Conditions

IF you were convicted in Nevada on or after July 1, 2003 of

You may petition the court of competent jurisdiction for an order granting the restoration of your civil rights.

IF you were convicted in Nevada of a felony other than a category A or B felony as described above, and have been:

You have been restored the following civil rights:

IF you received an unconditional pardon

You are restored all civil rights and are relieved of all disabilities incurred upon conviction.

IF you were convicted of a felony in a federal court or convicted in another state

Call the Clark County Election Department at (702) 455-0075 or (702) 455-8683 for direction.

IF you were federally convicted in the US District Court of Nevada  

AND the Election Department advises you must provide:

AND you do not have that documentation
Call the main telephone of the U.S. District Probation and Parole Department at (702) 527-7300.

And in Los Angeles, the ACLU has partnered with LARRP, the Los Angeles Regional Reentry Partnership, on an “Unlock the Vote”  campaign to reduce barriers to registration and voting for justice-involved and justice-impacted folks in Los Angeles County as well as Orange County. The project volunteers go inside the LA and Orange County jails to to educate and register eligible voters, both the prisoners and the family and friends who are visiting, and reach out through reentry fairs and other community events to educate and register people who are returning citizens or otherwise criminal justice system-impacted. If you are an LA County resident and would like to get involved, here is the information to volunteer.

In Illinois, the  Governor has on his desk and is expected to sign the recently passed HB 4469, which requires every jail in the state to provide voter education and make in-person or absentee voting available to all eligible incarcerated voters. Currently only eight counties in the state have any voting process for people in pretrial detention. “There is confusion around how election code actually applies to the jail,” says Jen Dean, who runs Cook County Jail Votes, the group that helps facilitate registration and voting in the largest jail in the country. “[This bill] creates a system of uniformity across the state to make sure there are systems in place so that everybody has access to the ballot.”

Meanwhile, in California, a bill to increase voter education in jails recently cleared the Senate Public Safety Committee. Assembly Bill 3115 would require jails to partner with at least one organization to provide “both written and verbal information about voting rights upon release from jail, providing affidavits of registration to eligible voters, assisting eligible voters with the completion of the affidavits of registration, and assisting eligible voters in returning the completed voter registration cards to the county elections official.”

All Of Us or None, a California a California-based grassroots organization fighting for the rights of formerly and currently incarcerated people, has sent demand letters to ten California county registrar’s offices –including Butte, Contra Costa, Kings, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Clara, Solano, Tulare, Ventura and Orange — asking them to reinstate the voter registrations of thousands of people with conviction histories that AOUON believes were unlawfully purged from electoral rolls. According to AOUON, there are at least 3,000 such eligible voters removed in 2017 in Los Angeles County alone.

In 2011, a major California criminal justice reform — commonly known as “Realignment” — changed the law to require that people with non-serious, non-violent, or non-sexual felonies be sentenced to county jail or probation, instead of state prison. Since the California Constitution disenfranchises only those who are “imprisoned or on parole for the conviction of a felony,” the voting eligibility of those serving felony sentences in county jail under Realignment was unclear for several years. Following a successful legal battle brought by AOUON and other community allies against the Secretary of State, the State Legislature ultimately passed AB 2466 to clarify that Californians who are convicted of county Realignment felonies retain their right to vote. As of January 1, 2017, state elections law requires local courts to provide to the county registrar a monthly list of people “committed to state prison.” The registrar is then required to cancel the registrations of people currently in prison or on parole. According to AOUON, county clerks appear to still be purging voters sentenced to county jail or probation on felonies.

The last day to register to vote in this June’s California primary election is May 21. For people who are currently in county jail, the deadline to request mail-in ballots is May 29.