Gov. Malloy, you can grant parolees the right to vote

Six months ago, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order that provisionally pardoned the people on parole in the state – 35,000 in all.

[See a response from the Malloy administration below — Ed]

It was the fact that the New York State Assembly had just refused to refranchise paroled would-be voters that motivated Cuomo to take bold action.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy needs to follow Cuomo’s example and take action by himself to restore voting rights to people who are currently on parole in Connecticut.

A almost identical situation played out here in Connecticut around the same time as the parolee voting rights tussle in New York. House Bill 5418, “An Act Restoring Electoral Privileges to Felony Convicts who Are on Parole” was introduced in March. The bill had notable support, including from Malloy himself and members of his cabinet.

Yet HB 5418 was debated in the House of Representatives and tabled; it didn’t even get a vote.

The debate, though, was telling. In arguing that refranchising parolees was a bad idea, one state representative, a criminal defense attorney, made a speech on the floor of the House that voting is a privilege and not an “absolute right.”

This lawyer may need to brush up on his constitutional law. As others have noted, the U.S. Constitution describes the ability to vote as a right five times throughout the document. Free speech, bearing arms and due process are mentioned as rights only one time each.

Voting might be the biggest constitutional right that we have in this country because it’s essential to freedom and to citizenship.

Malloy has established himself as a trailblazer, even a visionary, on criminal policy reform and was once named “the Second Chance Governor” for the progressive justice measures enacted here during his tenure, including allowing a conference to be live-streamed from one of the state’s prisons.

Leaving office as Connecticut remains the last state on the east coast that continues to deny the vote to parolees doesn’t jibe with the leader Malloy has become.

To make his legacy complete, he needs to do what’s within his power to make elections fair in this state and stop stripping people who’ve earned a second chance of their rights to participate in democracy.

Granted, the pardon system in New York is different than it is in Connecticut because Gov. Cuomo has pardon authority through the New York state constitution. The Connecticut Constitution doesn’t allow our governor to pardon anyone, even provisionally. Pardons, which are formal acts of forgiveness of crimes that include expungement of records, are the province of the Board of Pardons and Paroles alone.

But Malloy is still fully capable of issuing an executive order that grants people on parole the right to vote — the right to be fully free citizens — in Connecticut. The Connecticut Constitution did retain for the governor the executive authority to issue reprieves — (Article Four, Section 13) temporary stays of sentence — to anyone convicted of a crime.

The reason why parolees are disallowed from voting is that they’re technically still serving a sentence, unlike people on probation, who’ve been restored the right to vote in Connecticut since 2002 because they’ve been deemed to have completed their sentences.

Malloy can issue a reprieve for every person serving a parole sentence in the state and make them eligible to vote under Connecticut General Statutes. His reprieve power is perfectly suited to accomplishing for parolees what the General Assembly refused to do.

It’s not like Malloy is skittish about using his executive power. He did it just recently when the General Assembly refused to vote on several bills which would have authorized the study and implementation of tolls. In the absence of statutes, and in the face of public and political opposition, Malloy ordered a $10 million study all by himself.

And it’s not a situation where Malloy would be removing parolees from all supervision or restitution orders. Just as Gov. Cuomo did with his conditional pardon for parolees in his state, Malloy can tailor his reprieve order so that it doesn’t let parolees completely off the hook. Parolees’ sentences can be stayed only with respect to registering to vote. That’s the beauty of executive power; it’s all up to Malloy.

Any type of felony disenfranchisement is detrimental to more than just the people it makes ineligible to vote; it affects elections by restricting turnout. Disenfranchisement suppresses a larger electorate than just those who’ve lost their rights. A study published in Probation Journal revealed that many returning citizens don’t understand that they are eligible to vote even when they are. Whenever one sector of a criminal justice-involved population loses its vote, other sectors assume it applies to them, too. It’s one of the downsides of creating awareness of the unfairness of felon disenfranchisement; efforts have backfired and convinced eligible voters that they’re still sidelined.

As he prepares to leave office, Malloy shouldn’t be hamstrung by a legislature that doesn’t get it. He needs keep up with the Cuomo’s and create voting rights for parolees — all by himself.