City Voter Guide Mistakenly Tells Paroled Felons They Can't Vote
A voter guide mailed to more than 4.5 million New York City residents wrongly states felons on parole don’t have the right to vote.
The New York City Campaign Finance Board produced the guide, a 32-page dual language booklet which was mailed two weeks before the November 6 election. Its second page says those currently incarcerated or on parole for a felony can’t vote.
However, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order in April that restored voting rights to felons when they’re released on parole, by granting them conditional pardons. Cuomo’s office said more than 32,000 felons have received the conditional pardons this year.
Groups that work with formerly incarcerated New Yorkers were upset by the error in the voting guide.
Soffiyah Elijah, executive director of the Alliance of Families for Justice, said the mistake could confuse thousands of parolees, most of whom are black or Latino.
“If they get this mailer from the city’s Campaign Finance Board it could lead them to think that in fact they can’t vote,” she said. “So it could chill someone’s exercise of the right to vote, fearing that it would be illegal for them to go vote, and that the old law was in effect.”
Campaign Finance Board spokesman Matthew Sollars said the voter guide wasn’t updated to reflect the executive order restoring voting rights. “We regret the error and any confusion that this has caused,” he said, adding that the website has since been corrected. The agency also tweeted about the mistake on Wednesday.
“We have updated our website to provide more clarity on this complicated issue,” Sollars said. “We have been working throughout the year with the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College and other organizations to speak with parolees directly and inform them about their voting rights. That includes a trip to Riker’s scheduled for Friday, November 2.”
Nick Malinowski, civil rights campaign director for the group VOCAL-NY, said it's hard to tell how many people paroled after serving time for a felony actually registered to vote this year. He said his group conducted outreach with parole officers in the spring, after the governor's executive order, and spoke with parolees. "People believe if they have a felony conviction they can’t vote," he said, adding there's a real lack of understanding.
The mistake was noticed by a few sharp eyes as soon as the guides were mailed in late October. Brooklyn Defender Services commented on Twitter. And the Community Service Society contacted the Campaign Finance Board last week.
“There’s been a pretty public campaign about the limited pardon issue by governor Cuomo,” said the Society’s general counsel, Judith Whiting. “We would have thought the agency in charge of telling New Yorkers what their rights were would have picked up on the conditional pardon issue and adjusted their materials accordingly. There was ample time to adjust material.”
New York City isn’t the only place that failed to update the information on parolees’ rights. In September, The Appeal reported that almost every county’s board of elections website made the same mistake.
Isabel Zeitz-Moskin, national organizer for the National Action Network, noted that it's unfortunately too late for the Campaign Finance Board to mail out a new voter guide. But she said New York City and other counties could spread the word about the right to vote for felons on parole.
"We demand that the information be corrected on every state-sponsored website immediately," she said, adding, "They also must appropriately message all printed materials in the future."
Correction: The original version of this article said Bronx Defenders tweeted about the voter guide error. However, the tweet came from Brooklyn Defender Services.
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