Gabe Singer is 44 years old and about to vote in his first election.
Singer is a Los Angeles native and a former felon. This year, he will join other former felons in heading to the polls as eligible voters for the first time thanks to a new California law that automatically restores voting rights for ex-felons, even if they are on probation or parole.
For Singer, it’s about more than voting. It’s about being welcomed into society.
“This is not only my first time voting in a presidential election since coming out of prison, this is the first time I’m going to vote in my life,” he said.
Having gone to prison at age 25, Singer now works to educate others, especially young people, on the importance of voter participation.
“You have this change come along and you gain motivation, this want so badly to come back because you’ve been exiled for so long,” he said.
The change Singer is referring to is the implementation of California Proposition 17, proposed by State Rep. Kevin McCarty and passed Nov. 3, 2020. The proposition amended the state’s constitution to allow automatic restoration of voting rights after a person is released from prison.
Before Proposition 17, the California constitution prohibited individuals with felony convictions from voting both while in prison and on parole. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, this kept more than 50,000 Californians from voting.
Disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification, has had a disproportionate impact based on racial demographic in Los Angeles and in the country at large.
According to the Los Angeles Almanac the population of Los Angeles county jail in 2023 was 55% Hispanic, 29% African American and 13% White, with African Americans representing a disproportionately large portion of the jail population compared to their county population — about 8%.
“It’s important to understand disenfranchisement was never instituted because it was considered an issue of public safety. It is a direct result of racism and our country’s legacy of slavery,” said Taina Angeli Vargas, founder and executive director at Initiate Justice Action, a non-profit working to educate those affected by mass incarceration.
“The idea was that your right to vote is no longer being taken away because you’re Black,” said Vargas, who was chairperson of the Yes on Proposition 17 campaign. “Now, it is being taken away because you’re in prison.”
“This is a legacy that has continued to this day and continues to have an incredibly disproportionate impact on Black Americans,” she said.
The restoration of felon voting rights in California comes on the heels of a national trend that has taken place over the last few election cycles.
“It still is in a way state by state, but there is a national movement that is picking up steam,” said Reggie Thedford, legal counsel for the Restore Your Vote program at Campaign Legal Center.
Federal lawmakers have proposed multiple bills designed to restore ex-felon voting rights across the country. The Democracy Restoration Act, introduced by Maryland U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, aimed at returning voting rights to those with felony convictions, would effectively restore federal voting rights to just under 6 million people. And the Inclusive Democracy Act proposed by U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley goes a step further, proposing the return of voting rights to anyone with a felony conviction including the currently incarcerated.
“Not much is getting passed in Congress these days, so we know these bills will not necessarily pass,” Thedford said. “What we are trying to do is lay the groundwork, so there is a foundation for when the time is right for these bills to pass.”
After passing Proposition 17, California joined 22 other states in automatic restoration of voting rights upon release from incarceration. So far, only Maine, Vermont and the District of Columbia have abolished disenfranchisement for people still incarcerated.
“At the end of the day these are very new policies, and it’s going to take time to weed them out to make sure they aren’t just policies but actual change that transfers to the electorate.” Thedford said.
Initiate Justice Action and other advocacy and education groups say there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of re-enfranchisement policy, their ultimate goal being to abolish the practice of disenfranchisement entirely.
Antoinette Ratcliffe, executive director of Initiate Justice, a Los Angeles based organization empowering individuals impacted by incarceration, said the restoration of felon voting rights is a “fundamental aspect” of an inclusive democracy.
“As a state, when we are allowing ourselves to remove people from the voting block because of incarceration, we are also saying that it is ok to remove people from the voting block because they are Black or Latin[x], or because they are poor and from communities with little to no resources,” Ratcliffe said.
People like Singer who have experienced incarceration are well aware of the feeling of exclusion that comes with being an ex-felon.
“Outside the punitive systems, if you were making payments on a car and messed up, you have the ability to fix your credit score over a period of time. But if you make a bad choice because of where you grew up, or your trauma, you don’t ever get to have that new credit score,” Singer said. “It is like continually re-punishing, re-traumatizing an individual about a mistake made years and years ago.”
While passing Proposition 17 could have a profound impact on communities at large, Ratcliffe said gaps around implementation and timely, consistent voter education have created significant barriers to seeing the kind of change the legislation intended.
One example of this is discharge cards, which provide proof that an individual is no longer on parole.
“We have had a few members reach out to us and show us their discharge card which says ‘now that you are off parole your right to vote has been restored,’” Vargas said. “This is implying that while they are on parole they cannot vote.”
Vargas said another instance took place at a resource fair within the California Women’s Facility Thursday, Feb. 22. Vargas said she recalls a surprising conversation with a representative for the Division of Adult Parole Operations, whose responsibility it is to prepare people for reentry after incarceration.
Vargas asked the representatives what the division’s process is for letting people who are about to get out of prison know that their right to vote has been restored. “They stared at me with a blank expression,” Vargas said. “They responded, ‘You’re saying that people can vote when they’re on parole?’ They didn’t know. And it’s these people who are responsible for preparing people before they get out.”
In addition to the work Initiate Justice and Initiate Justice Action are doing to inform people that they are able to vote in his upcoming presidential election, they are also providing comprehensive information for first time voters.
“What we remind people of is that the vote is already extremely diluted. Our Black vote is diluted, our Latino vote is diluted, our poor vote is diluted significantly,” Ratcliffe said. “That means each one of us that does show up and votes down our ballot really has a profound impact.”
The introduction of this demographic to the electorate through Proposition 17 is unlikely to have a significant impact on the outcome of the presidential race in California, since the state already trends Democratic. But it could be highly impactful in local elections that will more closely impact Californian cities like Los Angeles.
“I was giving a presentation recently where I showed the result of a local city election where the difference between one candidate and another was about 20 votes,” Ratcliffe said. “To sit in a room of 20 people and let them know that you 20 can impact a local election, that is where you see the impact.”
According to Vargas, introducing ex-felons to the California electorate bolsters the democratic process and ensures elected officials represent the collective will of the communities they represent.
“When you have people who are marginalized, they feel disempowered and they don’t have the tools and skill they need to participate fully in our electorate,” Vargas said. “You end up electing people that are only representing a portion of the electorate, the portion that has the time, money and resources to participate fully.”
While the outcome of the presidential election in California might not be as suspenseful as other states, for ex-felons like Singer, the act of voting symbolizes a change as impactful as any election result.
“If you were to ask in a private room of these people, whenever they started getting into trouble, I guarantee every single person wants to be a part of the system. It’s just they don’t feel that the system wanted them there,” Singer said. “Being able to vote creates this excitement and joy where you think, I can be a part of the system, and I want to be a part of the system.”
A previous version of this article stated that State Rep. Isaac Bryan introduced California Proposition 17. State Rep. Kevin McCarty introduced the proposition. Annenberg Media regrets this error.