We need to mobilize the votes of those persons convicted of crimes who still have the vote and of their families and other concerned citizens. In most states, loss of the vote is not due to legislation. It is due to apathy and hopelessness and a sense that a vote doesn't matter. If we are to speed up change in our brutal and ever-growing criminal justice system, it will only be because politicians learn that there is a constituency for such change. In New York State and the majority of other states, once parole has ended, a person convicted of a felony can vote again.
Persons convicted of misdemeanors can vote.
Family members of those who have been involved in the criminal justice system can vote. A number of years ago, The Fortune Society conducted a voter registration drive at Riker's Island. That drive met with significant success and political education of those who were encouraged to use their right to vote. It has been wonderful to watch as the young people in the group, primarily persons who are involved with Fortune as an alternative to incarceration, begin to get a sense of how they can make a positive difference in their communities by exercising the right to vote. The pendulum will be swinging back from our current policies of mass incarceration.