LOD: The Missing 200,000

Facing South this week includes a report from the Sentencing Project about the number of citizens in each state who are disenfranchised because of a felony conviction. North Carolina bars people who are serving a felony sentence from voting, but they automatically regain their voting rights as soon as they finish their sentence, including probation or parole. The chart shows 82,400 North Carolinians without voting rights because of a felony conviction. The number excluded soars to 341,800 in Tennessee, 451,500 in Virginia, and 1,541,600 in Florida because of those states’ harsher laws that withhold voting rights even after a person finishes his or her sentence. Democracy North Carolina recently held a press conference in Charlotte to spread awareness about the automatic restoration of voting rights in our state. One former felon featured in this TV report is now the mayor of Marshville, Franklin Deese. “I want my life to be a testament and an example for all people,” he says. “If this guy can go from being an inmate to now being the mayor, surely I can go from wherever I am to where I need to be.” More awareness of NC’s law is needed to overcome word on the street that once you’ve been locked up, you’re locked out of voting; the myth is not true, but it contributes to the large gender gap among voters in North Carolina. While women make up 53.5% of white voters in NC, they make up 58% of African-American voters! If black men registered at the same rate as black women, another 200,000 black men would be registered today, a 35% increase over the current 575,000 in the state.