YOUR VOTE IS YOUR VOICE

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As an American citizen you have the right to voice your opinion. Freedom of speech protects your right to express those values, even if that expression seems so simple and insignificant, to overlook the fact to be empowered for a moment to have the confidence, the knowledge to make a decision to change history for generations to come, like an obvious proposition that a citizen registering to vote or casting a ballot is engaging in free speech, the fundamental right of every American citizen. This is your voice, let it be heard and vote. Voter suppression does exist in Alabama. Some felons are wrongly being barred from voting. Officials and advocates say hundreds or even thousands of Alabama felons are wrongly being denied the right to vote like, Ms. Julie Coleman has felony drug crimes on her record, so she was surprised to learn earlier this year she has the right to vote in Alabama. But to her disappointment, after she tried to register, she received a letter from the county registrar’s office stating she was not eligible.

“I worked so hard to get my record expunged to be the person that I am today, ”Ms. Coleman said.“ It really made me feel like all my efforts were not good enough.” According to officials felons like Ms. Coleman are improperly being denied the right to vote across the state. “We’re still seeing pretty regular misinterpretations of the law by the registrars, and sometimes the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles and other officials, resulting in people getting their voting rights denied,” said Blair Bowie of the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington, D.C.- based group that advocates for voting rights. Thousands of felons won the right to vote following the passage of a state law in 2017 that narrowed the list of felony convictions that barred offenders from ever voting again.

But the implementation of that law has been piecemeal, with some county officials taking a proactive stance and registering hundreds of newly eligible people, while other county and state officials have at times hindered or blocked people with forgivable offenses from regaining the franchise. Ms. Coleman attended a faith-based recovery program for two years following convictions for drug distribution and possession. She is now a general manager in the food industry. “I went from being an addict to running a $2 million dollar a year store, so I have come a long way,” she stated.

After receiving her disqualification letter from Morgan County, Coleman sought the help of the Alabama League of Women Voters and the Campaign Legal Center to appeal the decision. In a written exchange with the advocacy groups, Adonis Bailey, the chairwoman of Morgan County’s Board of Registrars, wrote that she believed the law only applied to crimes committed after 2017. But the new list of disqualifying felonies is retroactive. It doesn’t matter when a crime was committed. Coleman appealed to the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, which determined she was eligible. “For them to shut me down, it was pretty disappointing,” she said of her initial rejection. “It was a lot of time. It was a lot of just having to call this person, call that person. Look up this, look that up." Ms. Julie Coleman was ultimately able to register to vote in time for the 2020 general election. Many other felons remain wrongly barred from voting.