In New York State if your are on probation or have completed your sentence, including parole, you CAN VOTE. Your voting rights are automatically restored, but in order to VOTE you must register.
To view the New York State Board of Elections information about Voting after Incarceration, click HERE
Why is it important to VOTE?
- Because your VOTE Counts.
- In local elections, the win can and often does come down to just a few VOTES.
- For minorities, it took a Constitutional Amendment in order for us to VOTE.
- “The 15th Amendment to the Constitution granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that the “right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Although ratified on February 3, 1870, the promise of the 15th Amendment would not be fully realized for almost a century. Through the use of poll taxes, literacy tests and other means, Southern states were able to effectively disenfranchise African Americans. It would take the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 before the majority of African Americans in the South were registered to vote” (From the Library of Congress, Primary Documents in American History, 15th Amendment to the Constitution)
- For women it took a Constitutional Amendment in order for us to VOTE.
- “The 19th amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle; victory took decades of agitation and protest. Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change of the Constitution. Few early supporters lived to see final victory in 1920.” (From www.ourdocuments.gov, 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women’s Right to Vote (1920))
- For minority women it to both of the above Constitutional Amendments in order for us to VOTE.
- 15th Amendment
- 19th Amendment
Dannielle Hille 