Ballots Over Bars Webinar
No Longer 3/5 Coalition hosted a webinar on July 27, 2023 featuring our currently incarcerated co-founders, formerly incarcerated Coalition members, and community organizers who are gearing up to get felony voting rights on the ballot in Massachusetts. Learn why voting matters to people in prison, the current legislation from Rep. Uyterhoeven, and our campaign to collect over 75,000 signatures across the state.
“Since the beginning of this country, those in power have been finding ways to lock Blacks out of the political process.”
“Political awareness wasn’t on my radar when I was growing up, so I wasn’t aware of the importance. But now I see that politics control everything, from the water we drink to what our children learn in school, to what happens with police officers and police brutality cases. Or whether district attorneys maintain conviction integrity units to overturn wrongful convictions. Or even whether those incarcerated continue to be abused mentally, physically, and emotionally, or whether we go home rehabilitated and educated to be productive citizens in society.
All of that comes from whether we’re able to vote and participate in this process.
So for those reasons and many more, voting is important to me. Not being allowed to vote is keeping me a slave to policies that don’t represent me and [aren’t] putting in place programs that’ll help our community.
I’m still a citizen in this democracy.
My conviction has nothing to do with voting, so it shouldn’t prevent me from doing so. By locking one out of the political process or the process that creates the laws, you’re keeping us outlaws.”
“Being able to vote is essential in here.
Being able to vote is being able to be a part of the larger body. I’ve always seen the government as a body in which either you’re a part of or you’re outside of. When we look at a body, we look at how hands move, we look at how thoughts are processed, we look at fairness and consciousness. So if you’re able to pick the people who make up that body, then it does justice by you. But if you’re not able to do that, then you’re bound to get stomped on, assaulted by that body.
So being able to pick the people who make the laws that govern these environments, govern my world, and govern the institutions that I’ve been a part of, it’ll be a lot more equitable, which is why I feel like it’s important that everybody has the ability to participate in a political process.”
“The people who are incarcerated having the ability to vote goes beyond just representation, it has the potential to improve the conditions that incarcerated people experience.”
“I think those who are most affected by the laws of incarceration should have some say in who writes or changes these laws. Society should hear from those behind the wall that are silenced. The facade needs to be removed, and let us help choose who’s going to control our life.”
