An email from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
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JULY 17, 2018
Dear Amy,
We're pleased to announce our partnership with the Campaign Legal Center on a grassroots effort that will re-enfranchise thousands of Alabama voters.
The
Alabama Voting Rights Project is taking a simple message across the state: A felony conviction does not permanently remove your right to vote.
A relic of the Jim Crow era disqualified
more than 280,000 Alabamians over the last century. Before, individual county officials held the power to decide whose rights could be restored, resulting in different standards for each county.
But Alabama passed the
Definition of Moral Turpitude Act in 2017, which clarified which felonies would not block people from voting.
Shockingly,
Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill has said that
his office would not take any action to make sure the thousands of people affected by the law actually know about it.
Now, tens of thousands of people who have paid their debts to society can register to vote, even if they were previously told they could not. Tens of thousands of additional Alabamians may be eligible to restore their right to vote by applying for a state Certificate of Eligibility to Register to Vote.
The Alabama Voting Rights Project will actively reach out to Alabama residents who are affected by the law, make sure they know about it, and help them access their right to vote under it. We'll train workers to:
- Organize and train local leaders in communities across the state,
- Participate in community events and forums and go door to door to work with formerly incarcerated people who may be eligible to vote under Alabama law, and
- Use www.alabamavotingrights.comto guide formerly incarcerated Alabamians through the process of registering or re-establishing their voting status.
SPLC Outreach Director Lecia Brooks explains why this initiative is so important:
"So many people fought and died to ensure that all citizens have a voice in our society through the right to vote, yet many men and women – disproportionately people of color and poor people – have been denied the right to vote even after serving their time and completing their sentences. The Alabama Voting Rights Project is dedicated to ensuring that every person who is eligible to vote in Alabama is registered and that each one of them can access the franchise. A healthy democracy depends on full participation by all members of society."
You can
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Sincerely,
Your friends at the SPLC
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Everything You Need to Vote - Vote.org
