Denise Ruben is getting ready to vote in a presidential election for the first time in 16 years. Back then, in 2008, a young Illinois senator named Barack Obama was preparing to make history as America’s first Black president. This year, Kamala Harris — the first Black woman to serve as vice president — hopes to follow in his footsteps.
Ruben’s lapse in political participation, however, is not entirely about the candidates on the ballot. Like thousands of other Georgians, Ruben lost her right to vote after being convicted of a felony and sent to prison. Now, she’s looking forward to once again having a say in her elected leadership.
“Democracy is our right,” said Ruben, an Atlanta resident. “There’s power in your voice and there’s power in your vote.”
While laws vary state-by-state, any person in prison, on parole, or on probation for a felony conviction is not legally allowed to vote in Georgia. Nearly a quarter of a million Georgians, more than half of whom are Black, will be barred from voting this year due to felony convictions, according to The Sentencing Project, an advocacy group working to end mass incarceration in the U.S. Yet misinformation often leaves people whose voting rights have been restored facing major barriers to re-registration.
“There are approximately 400,000 Georgians who have a felony record but can vote because they have completed their sentence,” said Doug Ammar, executive director of the Georgia Justice Project, a nonprofit that supports formerly incarcerated people. “There are also at least 40,000 Georgians who are serving a felony First Offender Act or conditional discharge sentence who didn’t lose their right to vote, but often think they did.”
Read More: Here’s How to Vote In Georgia if You Have a Felony Conviction
Those voices have the potential to tip the scales in the upcoming election between Harris and former President Donald Trump, a race expected to hinge on victories in swing states like Georgia. President Joe Biden defeated Trump in the Peach State by fewer than 12,000 votes in the 2020 general election; this year’s showdown is likely to be similarly tight, based on several polls leading up to the big day.
For Ruben, the road to making her voice heard has been a journey. After returning home from prison in 2019, her six-year probation sentence was cut in half due to a law passed in 2021. Formerly incarcerated Georgians regain the right to vote once their prison, parole, or probation sentences are complete, after which they still need to re-register. Ruben did so last fall, only to find there would be another obstacle to come just months later.
Solutions and support for justice-impacted people
Bridgette Simpson spent 10 years incarcerated before being released in 2018. Unable to legally vote while she was on probation, Simpson sought out other avenues to affect the political process.
“The very first election I was home, I worked as a canvasser for Stacey Abrams’ campaign,” said Simpson, who regained her voting rights in 2019, and plans to cast her ballot in the upcoming election. “I just believed so much in what she was doing and what it could mean for Georgia.”
Simpson has also directed her energy toward helping others who have been disenfranchised by the legal system and discriminated against in the labor market. “Many of us are forced to be business owners,” she said.
Along with Ruben, Simpson co-founded a nonprofit called Barred Business in 2020 to provide resources to justice-impacted people and offer small-business loans to those whose criminal record would otherwise make them ineligible.
Their organization — and others, like the League of Women Voters and the Georgia Justice Project — also educates justice-impacted people who oftentimes encounter misinformed board of elections workers who wrongly assume a felony conviction prevents citizens from ever regaining their voting rights.
(Delaware and Iowa are among a handful of states that permanently disenfranchise residents who’ve been convicted of certain felonies, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.)
Earlier this year, Ruben herself dealt with such a situation. After registering to vote last year, a move required her to file a change-of-address request. A mistaken election board employee revoked her status after discovering she was formerly incarcerated.
“They saw my record and just unregistered me,” she said.
Ruben resolved the issue at the Fulton County Board of Elections office. She says she wants to ensure that other justice-impacted people know what to do if they find themselves in a similar predicament.
“We talk to people every week who could have been voting the last five, 10, or even 20 years but sadly just never knew their rights until we worked with them,” Ammar said.
Navigating misinformation
Jacquelyn Myers was shocked when she received a letter earlier this year that said her voter registration had been canceled due to a past conviction.
Myers was sentenced to five years of probation under Georgia’s First Offender Act, a law passed in 1968 that allows individuals to avoid a felony on their record if they haven’t previously been convicted of one. (Certain offenses, like aggravated and sexual assault, are not eligible for this provision.) People sentenced as first offenders never lose their right to vote and have their criminal history expunged after completing the terms of their sentence.
Even with the law on Myers’ side, reinstating her voter registration was a struggle.
“I reached out to the elections department, and they told me that because of my sentence, I was ineligible,” she said. “We went back and forth for a little bit, and then she said she would do some research.”
Instead of waiting to hear back, Myers contacted the Georgia Justice Project, which sent a letter on her behalf to the Fayette County elections office.
“While the registration and voting process is smooth for most people, sometimes the secretary of state receives incorrect data about a person’s sentence, causing their voter registration to be canceled when it shouldn’t be,” said Ann Colloton, policy and outreach coordinator at the Georgia Justice Project.
In addition to working with individuals who have had their registration canceled or have been turned away at the polls in error, Colloton said her organization also works with the secretary of state’s office to find ways to reduce these kinds of mistakes.
Myers said the ordeal was sorted out in about a week. But that wasn’t the last hurdle she’d encounter on her way to vote.
When Myers attempted to vote early last month, the poll worker told her she was flagged in the system as on probation and therefore ineligible to vote.
She was ultimately allowed to cast her ballot — but only after signing a waiver confirming she was serving a sentence that allowed her to retain her rights, otherwise she would face a $100,000 fine.
“It was a little intimidating honestly because I was thinking, who is this going to and how are they going to verify?” Myers said. She worries that someone unfamiliar with the law will receive the waiver and attempt to enforce the penalty.
“Hopefully, it will all be fine,” she added. “[If not], I know that I can contact the Georgia Justice Project and they’ll help me resolve it.”
