For the past several years, incarcerated people at San Quentin State Prison have been holding mock elections. In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden won 84 percent of the mock vote. Incarcerated men wrote on the back of their ballots, obtained by The Guardian in 2020, “I want to be heard” and “I'd like to feel like a citizen; feel like I am important too.” This year, there is a glimmer of hope.
An amendment to the California state constitution—commonly referred to as ACA 4—proposed by Isaac Bryan, a Los Angeles Democrat in the state Assembly, would remove a provision that disqualifies people serving time in state or federal prison from voting.
“Disenfranchisement of incarcerated people does nothing to improve the safety of our communities or encourage rehabilitation,” Bryan said on the steps of the State Capitol in February. “All the data shows us that voting reduces recidivism and increases community connectivity for people,” he continued.
In November 2020, California restored the voting rights of nearly 50,000 formerly incarcerated people serving time on probation and parole with Proposition 17. Now, the new ACA 4 ballot measure could restore the voting rights of over 90,000 people.
Juan Moreno Haines is an incarcerated journalist at San Quentin News, where I serve as editor-in-chief. The newspaper is written and produced entirely by those incarcerated at San Quentin in Marin County, north of San Francisco.
“I have actually been advocating for this for years,” says Haines. “The right to vote is paramount to a successful democracy.”
Many incarcerated people at San Quentin, including myself, see having political representation as pivotal to their rehabilitation and reconnection to their families and their communities. In March, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that San Quentin State Prison would be renamed San Quentin Rehabilitation Center and transformed into a facility “focused on improving public safety through rehabilitation and education.” Despite such promises, the rights of those of us imprisoned here remain severely limited.
Thanh Tran, a former resident of San Quentin, said he felt more connected to his community through civic engagement opportunities. He was part of a group in the prison that helped to develop state policy with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Initiate Justice before he was released in 2022.
“Although we didn't have the right to vote, I felt the transformative power of being civically engaged,” Tran said during a February press conference for Bryan’s proposal.
Jessie Rose, a twenty-six-year-old who came to prison as a teenager, said he has never had an opportunity to vote. “It would make me feel more like a citizen,” Rose said. “Being able to vote may lead some incarcerated people to a career in politics.”
Jerry Maleek Gearin, another San Quentin News staffer, agrees: “Because this country is moving more toward creating a fair and equitable criminal justice system, I believe giving incarcerated people the right to vote would guarantee we get closer to that type of system.”
Statistics show that Black, brown, and Indigenous populations are over-represented in prison but under-represented in elections. Latinos are 41 percent of the prison population and 38 percent of the state population, according to Project MALES, a Texas-based research group. California’s Black population makes up only 6.5 percent of the state, but 28 percent of the prison population, according to Californians United for a Responsible Budget.
Some lawmakers disagree with the idea of incarcerated people being able to vote. Republican state Representative Tom Lackey of Palmdale argues that voting is not a constitutionally guaranteed right but “a privilege criminals lose when they commit the crime.” He has also said of the California bill: “We don’t want people who have shown disrespect for our laws to be part of forming them, and that’s what this proposal does.”
“This system never wanted the Black vote in the first place,” says incarcerated journalist Haines. “That’s why we had the Black codes, and Jim Crow laws, and protests for voter rights. Felony convictions are just an excuse they use to help justify this continuing disenfranchisement.”
Allowing incarcerated people to vote wouldn’t be a revolutionary act, but a reparatory one for a long history of oppression of communities we see over-represented in the penal system.
Lackey makes no mention of the historical legacy of slavery and institutional racism. Nor does he mention that high numbers of Blacks have been wrongfully convicted in this country. Black men are 7.5 times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder than white men, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.
Another thing Lackey doesn’t mention: the Reparations Task Force assembled in early 2023 by Newsom will determine appropriate reparations for the state’s involvement with slavery and its legacy. Much of what it has already proposed, besides monetary compensation, is aimed at addressing the systemic racism of the criminal justice system. (San Francisco is also currently considering reparations proposals for its eligible Black residents, including a one-time $5 million payment.)
Beyond this, Newsom has recognized the disproportionate number of people of color sentenced to death by imposing a moratorium and dismantling California’s death row. He also signed historic Racial Justice Act legislation, which enables people of color to challenge their convictions based on evidence racism played a role in their trial or sentencing.
Allowing incarcerated people to vote wouldn’t be a revolutionary act, but a reparatory one for a long history of racism, oppression, and the decimation of Black and brown communities we see over-represented in the penal system.
Arthur Jackson, fifty, is another incarcerated person at San Quentin who believes that prisoners should be allowed to vote. “People who have never walked in my shoes, lived my life or been in prison shouldn’t be making decisions that affect me,” says Jackson. “They are out of touch and don’t know what to do. That’s why this system is messed up.”
“There is no other group of potential voters that would be more informed on the issues than incarcerated people if given the right to vote,” said Jackson.
Vermont, Maine, and Washington, D.C. currently allow incarcerated people to vote. But populations in Vermont and Maine are only 1.5 percent and 1.8 percent Black, respectively, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
California’s new ballot measure proposal, ACA 4, now has to pass through several committees. Before it can be placed on the ballot, it will have to receive a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of the legislature.