City Walks Back Voter Guide's Bad Info On Parolee Rights

NEW YORK — Many New Yorkers on parole will be able to cast ballots in Tuesday's midterm elections — but they wouldn't know it from an official New York City voter guide. The pamphlet published by NYC Votes says people convicted of a felony can only vote after they've finished their "sentence and/or parole."

That's despite an executive order from Gov. Andrew Cuomo extending conditional pardons to parolees that allow them to vote. Cuomo's first round of pardons in May restored voting rights for more than 24,000 people.

NYC Votes, a voter engagement campaign run by the city's Campaign Finance Board and its Voter Assistance Advisory Committee, acknowledged the flap on Wednesday, saying it had updated its website "to provide more clarity on this complicated issue."

"The language in our printed Voter Guide was not updated to reflect the executive order restoring voting rights to most parolees in New York," NYC Votes said in a statement. "We regret the error and any confusion that this has caused."

The campaign added that it's been working to inform parolees about their voting rights with the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, an effort that includes a scheduled trip to Rikers Island on Friday.

But the mea culpa was too little, too late for some advocates. The campaign should have explicitly said that most people on parole are eligible to register to vote, said Jared Chausow, a senior policy specialist at Brooklyn Defender Services.

"The eligibility info on voter registration forms should be updated immediately. Lots more to do," Chausow wrote on Twitter. "The city and state really haven't taken this restoration of voting rights for tens of thousands of mostly Black & Latinx people seriously."

Cuomo's April executive order circumvented state law, which bars felons from voting until they've completed their prison sentence or parole. With the move, New York joined 14 other states and the District of Columbia in restoring voting rights for people released from prison.

Incarcerated New Yorkers can vote if they're awaiting trial or have only been convicted of a misdemeanor.

Mayor Bill de Blasio's DemocracyNYC initiative has registered more than 600 incarcerated people incarcerated in city jails to vote in time for Tuesday's election since August, the mayor's office said Thursday. The effort also registered 273 visitors to jail facilities.

(Lead image: The voter guide pamphlet published by NYC Votes contained misleading information about voting rights for parolees. Photo by Noah Manskar/Patch)