FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com NOVEMBER 10, 2016 • The Courier sun 21 City Council looks to expand voting rights to detainees & former felons BY ALEXIS RAMOS [email protected]/@QNS It won’t be enacted in time for this year’s election, but legislation to grant detainees CUTLER’S LIGHTING Over 50 Years Experience REPAIRS • REWIRING • RE-FINISHING • LAMP SHADES FALL SAVINGS TAKE 20-50% OFF on yellow and red tagged items LAMP SHADE SALE 10% OFF ANY PURCHASE With Coupon. Not combinable – New Orders Only. Limit 1 per customer. $150.00 max for discount. Excludes Repairs, Refi nishing, Rewiring. Exp. 11/30/16 CUTLER’S LIGHTING CUTLER’S LIGHTING LYNBROOK 817 Sunrise Hwy (2 Blocks west of Peninsula Blvd.) 516-887-1300 GREAT NECK 120 Northern Blvd. 516-482-1919 12 years from now, this LED bulb will still be saving you money. OFF and former felons the right to vote was passed by the City Council last month. Incarcerated individuals often do not realize they are eligible to vote via absentee ballot, yet a staggering 6.1 million Americans have been disenfranchised as the result of a felony conviction, over 50 percent of whom have been denied the right to vote post-conviction, whether in prison, on parole, on probation or released from supervision. One in 13 of these individuals is a voting age African-American. State Election Law only permits a person serving probation or whose sentence has expired to be eligible to vote in an election, whereas anyone currently incarcerated for a felony conviction or yet to be discharged from parole is ineligible to do so. If signed into law, the city would grant the right to vote to 97,581 disenfranchised individuals, including more than 46,000 African-Americans. “A criminal justice system that is already disproportionately tilted against persons of color should neither obstruct nor completely sever every lasting means by which the incarcerated can maintain their place in society,” said Councilman Ruben Wills. “For generations, people awaiting trial that were too poor to secure bail had been denied their constitutional right to vote. Detainee absentee voting will begin to change the course of that history, but still more work lies ahead to provide even greater equality, as nearly 100,000 individuals in New York who have a felony conviction continue to be deprived of that right. Two years ago, Wills Proposed a bill that would require Department of Corrections to provide absentee ballot applications and forms to voting eligible individuals in custody no later than two weeks before any primary, special or general election. They would then be forwarded to the city Board of Elections. Wills and City Councilmen Ydanis Rodriguez and Ben Kallos also supported Resolution 870, which calls on the state to enact Assembly Bill 7634, which would restore voting rights to all individuals with a felony conviction who are no longer serving their prison sentences, including those eligible for presumptive or conditional release or post-supervision release.
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