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| Exercise your rights. VOTE. July, 2007 |
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Get Registered! |
Can ex-convicted felon vote in Pennsylvania?
The short answer is YES. If you paid your dues to society you can vote in Pennsylvania.
America has been described as the home of the brave and land of the free. But, through most of its history only white males were truly free. Women, blacks and others had to struggle to get the right to vote and continue to fight to keep that right.
When the time the Constitution was written in 1787, women could not vote. African-Americans, whether slave or free, were not considered citizens of the United States and they too, could not vote.
After the civil war (1865) Congress passed the 15th Amendment that gave all men the right to vote regardless of race. (However, many politicians from the southern states opposed giving ex-slaves the right to vote. In many southern counties, blacks outnumbered whites. New organizations like the Klu Klux Klan were created to terrorize and intimidate blacks from exercising their right to vote.)
Women had fought for the right to vote in the United States for one hundred years. Eventually the 19th amendment to the Constitution gave all women the right to vote in 1920.
Although limited universal suffrage was assured by federal statute, many states devised complicated schemes to disenfranchise African-Americans. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made such schemes illegal. (There was a lot of racial strife in the country in 1965. Martin Luther King and others lead demonstrations against the unjust disenfranchisement of black Americans. Under pressure President Johnson, a southern Democrat, pushed the legislation through Congress and signed it into law. This action angered many southern Dixie-crats that they, historians say, switched to the Republican Party. Blacks were largely registering as Democrats due to an allegiance to Eleanor Roosevelt’s efforts to end discrimination in the military during World War II.)
HAVA and SURE.
Long before the voting problems of the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections, Pennsylvania initiated a plan to streamline the Commonwealth’s voting system. Pennsylvania’s "Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors" or "SURE system was created to link the databases of all of the state’s 67 county election commissions.
After the Florida debacle of recounting paper ballots, and determining the status of a “hanging chad” in the November 2000 Presidential Election, Congress enacted “Help America Vote Act”. The entire voting system of the United States would be computerized to eliminate post election confusion. Pennsylvania was a pioneer in establishing modernized procedures for its residents.
The national media reported that states like Ohio, Georgia and Florida were denying or hindering black voters. Ex-convicted felons were not allowed to vote in some states.
According to Pennsylvania’s Department of State’s website, ex-convicted felons can vote even while on probation or on parole:
WHO CAN REGISTER AND VOTE
The following individuals may register and vote if they have been citizens of the United States for at least one month before the next election; have been residents of Pennsylvania and their respective election districts for at least 30 days before the next election; and will be at least 18 years of age on the day of the next election:
• Pretrial Detainees (individuals who are confined in a penal institution awaiting trial on charges of a felony or a misdemeanor).
• Convicted Misdemeanants (individuals who are confined in a penal institution for conviction of a misdemeanor only).
• Individuals who have been released (or will be released by the date of the next election) from a correctional facility or halfway house upon completion of their term of incarceration for conviction of a misdemeanor or a felony.
• Individuals who are on probation or released on parole, including parolees who are living in a halfway house.
• Individuals who are under house arrest (home confinement), regardless of their conviction status or the status of their conditions of confinement.
WHO CANNOT REGISTER AND VOTE
• Individuals who are currently confined in a penal institution for conviction of a felony (even if they are also incarcerated for one or more misdemeanor offenses) and who will not be released from confinement before the next election.
• Individuals in a halfway house or other alternative correctional facility on prerelease status for conviction of a felony and who will not be released before the date of the next election.
• Individuals who have been convicted of violating any provision of the Pennsylvania Election Code within the last four years.
For more information on who is eligible to vote and how to register, check out the following websites:
http://www.dos.state.pa.us/voting/lib/voting/guide/convicted_felon_brochure.pdf
(download a PDF File.)
http://www.dos.state.pa.us/voting/cwp/view.asp?a=1192&q=443054 (Voter Qualifications)
http://www.fec.gov/votregis/pdf/pa.pdf (Download Voter Registration Form - a PDF file)
If you have any problems registering contact the friendly folks at the Lycoming Voter Commissioners Office at 327-2267 or toll free at 1-877-868-3592
| Related links:
For more information on when to register in Lycoming County go to:
Important registration dates for Lycoming County
For instructions on how to use electronic voter machines. Go to:
How to work the machine!
For video instructions on how to use electronic voter machines. Go to:
How to work the machine - the movie!
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