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September 30, 2009
NAACP's president returns to Maine for voter drive in prisons
NAACP's president returns to Maine for voter drive in prisons
BY TREVOR MAXWELL Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 09/30/2009
Less than a year after he came to Maine to lobby for prison reform and ensure that inmates have an opportunity to vote, the president of the NAACP led a voter registration drive on Tuesday at five of the state's seven correctional facilities for adults.
Benjamin Jealous, president and chief executive officer of the NAACP, said more than 100 inmates registered to vote at the Maine State Prison in Warren, and he was waiting for a tally on the other four facilities.
The effort, he said, was the first system-wide voter registration project in the history of America's prisons.
"It was a great day," Jealous said after leaving Warren on Tuesday afternoon. "How you teach someone to live on the inside is more than likely how they are going to live on the outside. This is about helping people to get on a path, to be more productive and involved members of society.
"As somebody with Maine roots, I have always believed this is a place where big problems can be solved," said Jealous, whose father was raised in Maine and graduated from Deering High School in Portland.
Maine and Vermont are the only two states that allow felons to vote while they are incarcerated.
The first voter registration drive at the Maine State Prison was held in May 2008, but the organizing inmates and leaders of the Portland chapter of the NAACP said there were no guarantees at the time that future drives would be allowed.
The inmates also were frustrated that it took more than two years to get permission for the project.
Jealous came to Maine in December of 2008, at the request of Portland chapter President Rachel Talbot Ross, and met with prison officials and outgoing state Attorney General Steven Rowe.
Coming out of those talks, the Department of Corrections announced that the NAACP could hold annual voter registration drives at every prison in Maine.
Coinciding with the voting drives, the NAACP conducts membership drives.
"This is fulfilling the commitment that was made," Talbot Ross said on Tuesday. "It has been a great success."
Because of scheduling conflicts at the Downeast Correctional Facility in Machiasport and the Central Maine Pre-Release Center in Hallowell, organizers were not able to register voters there on Tuesday.
Ross said she will visit inmates there in the coming weeks, before the Nov. 3 general elections. In 48 states, incarcerated felons are not allowed to vote.
And in Virginia and Kentucky, a felony conviction prohibits an individual from ever voting again.
"Maine is a leader in placing no restrictions on the right to vote," said Shenna Bellows, executive director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union.
The group has supported the efforts of the NAACP in the prisons.
Bellows said a study done in 1996 in Minnesota, as well as other studies, show that offenders who vote are less likely to reoffend.
"Voting rights encourage offenders to become productive members of society," Bellows said. "It enhances their ties to our democratic institutions and their ties to the community."
Posted by lois at September 30, 2009 07:07 PM