Last year, The Sun told the story of Damond Ramsey, a man who, after serving an 18-month prison sentence, went to work for an HIV testing and education program. But without the right to vote, he said he didn't feel like a full citizen.
"That change cannot be complete unless I can vote," he said. "My vote will make a difference in the lives of my children."
Fortunately, Maryland is one of several states that have restored voting rights for people who want to move on with their lives and integrate back into society. Last year, 52,000 people became eligible to vote after Gov. Martin O'Malley signed the Voter Registration Protection Act.
In 2006, the people of Rhode Island approved a constitutional amendment allowing formerly incarcerated people the right to vote upon leaving prison. And we have also seen progress toward voting rights restoration in Florida, which traditionally made it very difficult for people with felony records to regain the right to vote.
But even as voting restoration grows, we have a long way to go. In addition to the 11 states that continue to deny voting rights to people with felony convictions after they have completed their sentences, 35 states deny the right to parolees, and 30 states deny the right to those on probation. In a few states, including Virginia, felons are disenfranchised for life, with no appeal.
For a nation that depends on the participation of its citizens, it is fundamentally un-American to deny the vote to people who are living and working as law-abiding citizens. Furthermore, the more doors we close on people trying to rejoin society, the more likely it is we will drive them back to the behaviors we want them to leave behind.
That is why we are proposing a federal law - the Democracy Restoration Act - to allow people on probation or parole, or who have served their sentences, to freely exercise their fundamental right to vote.
Later this year, Americans will determine the next president of the United States. But millions remain disenfranchised because of a dangerous anachronism: civil death.
The principle of civil death, a vestige of the Middle Ages, declared that convicted criminals were outlaws - irrevocably expelled from society. Perhaps civil death made sense in a land of kings and peasants, but it has no place in America today. And yet it has endured: an estimated 4 million people with felony convictions have been stripped of their voting rights even though they have rejoined society.
