New York lawmakers pass bill to restore voting rights for people on parole

Both chambers of the state legislature passed a bill sponsored by State Sen. Leroy Comrie that would restore voting rights for people on parole. Photo courtesy of Comrie’s office

By David Brand

Both chambers of the New York state legislature have passed a measure to restore the voting rights of people on parole, delivering the bill to Gov. Cuomo’s desk after decades of advocacy by criminal justice reformers.

Lawmakers approved the bill, sponsored by Queens State Sen. Leroy Comrie and Manhattan Assemblymember Daniel O’Donnell, three years after Cuomo signed an executive order giving some people convicted of felonies the right to vote after they completed a “conditional pardon” application. The Assembly voted in favor of a measure codifying the restoration of voting rights Wednesday; the Senate in February. 

The new measure would eliminate the application process and give people on parole the right to vote immediately upon their release from prison. 

The existing law has had the functional impact of disenfranchising thousands of people of color, particularly Black and African American New Yorkers, who make up the majority of people behind bars or on parole in the state. More than 35,000 people are currently on parole in New York, according to Department of Correction and Community Supervision statistics; nearly three-quarters are Black or Latino.

Rescinding someone’s Constitutional right to vote as punishment for a criminal conviction has its roots in the segregationist policies of the 19th and 20th Centuries, when Black and African Americans were arrested for any number of offenses as pretext for disenfranchisement. 

“Felony disenfranchisement is a relic of Jim Crow America, so there is no need to wonder why it disproportionately impacts people of color,” Comrie said after the February Senate vote.

O’Donnell said Wednesday that lawmakers were “sending a clear message to the rest of the country: the right to vote is foundational to our democracy and should be expanded, not restricted.”

Advocates hailed passage of the legislation and urged Cuomo to sign it immediately.

“For decades, New York law has denied tens of thousands of New Yorkers living, working, and paying taxes in their communities the right to vote only because they are on parole. That’s wrong,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, deputy director of the Voting Rights and Elections Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. 

“They should be able to participate in democracy and the decisions that affect their lives.”