This article is part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on Sept. 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how democracy works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org.
This story is part of Locked Out, a special series from PJP about voting, politics and democracy behind bars. Click here to read more.
The upcoming presidential election will mark my fifth since I’ve been incarcerated in North Carolina. I am a 45-year-old Black man, and I have never voted.
Coming of age during the 1990s, my friends and I did not understand the importance of exercising our right to vote. We did not believe casting a ballot could change the poverty-stricken and drug-infested communities that reared us. As Black men, we did not believe our vote mattered. We certainly didn’t believe it would do anything to curb this country’s appetite to imprison us.
In fact, many of my friends were convicted of felonies before they reached the legal voting age. I was 28 when I first entered prison. I wasn’t a great reader, and my writing and math skills were subpar. Then, I was mostly concerned with surviving a 23-year sentence.
But my thoughts on voting changed when, from inside my cell, I watched Barack Obama’s rise. In that moment, I felt like I could be something more than an inmate or convicted felon. From then on, I had three priorities: get an education, read biographies and journal.
Today, I long to vote. It would signal that my voice matters. It would mean that I am still a human being and a U.S. citizen. To vote for the first time — and to be the first man in my family to cast a ballot — would be an even greater accomplishment than receiving my GED or my journeyman license for cabinetmaking.
I would be able to show my son why his voice matters. If my people could get Barack Obama elected as president of the country that enslaved us, then I believe the votes of the incarcerated can shift the direction of this country.
— Johnny Brown, North Carolina
At 51 years old, I’ve never voted.
When I was young, I did not feel in possession of my voice, let alone that it mattered. At 24, I was incarcerated. Over the years, I have cultivated enough experience and wisdom to confidently say that my voice does have power and that my vote would matter.
But incarceration stifles my voice.
As an incarcerated Black woman, a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and a person with a felony conviction, my vote matters. People like me cannot afford to be muffled while our futures are decided for us.
New Jersey should expand the voting registry to include incarcerated people who are serving state as well as federal sentences. This seems reasonable, given that people with felonies can become president.
It would mean the world to me to exercise my first vote in an election as historic as this one. It would be empowering to be able to use my voice in support of what matters to me: preserving my right to make choices about my own body, and influencing the criminal justice system. I encourage everyone to exercise their right and let their voices be heard.
— Lucretia Stone, New Jersey
I have spent most of my life in a place where peace depends on how scary you appear, and where agreements are maintained through fear. Despite this — and because of this — I have come to love this country.
It’s a strange thing, this admiration. I have lived my life disenfranchised from politics. I came to prison when I was too young to vote, too young to even drive. My youthful appearance and naïveté were preyed upon.
Unlike some people who were incarcerated as adults, I experienced and accomplished almost nothing before I got here. This fact can be agonizing to contemplate. I was no one before coming to prison — and since then prison has become my life.
Make no mistake: This country let me and tens of thousands like me down by throwing us into a lion’s den.
And yet, throughout my incarceration, I have come to appreciate what America represents at its best. Behind bars, I have glimpsed anarchy during riots, in dark areas without cameras, and in the collective unconscious of prison. Anarchy is a vacuum that is filled either by order or by terror. The former can be achieved by peaceful cooperation, or it can quickly devolve into a contest of size, muscle and coercion.
For all of its problems, America represents order over terror, peaceful cooperation over violence. In the absence of violence, what can take root are peace, goodwill, cooperation and, finally, further growth. These are values I have tried to cultivate while incarcerated, values that have allowed me to take responsibility for my past and instilled in me a desire to become better than the boy I was when I entered prison.
— Chris Dankovich, Michigan
I am 60 years old, and I have never voted. I’ve been incarcerated nearly my entire life in Michigan, one of 48 states that disenfranchise prisoners.
Still, I have nonetheless spent a lot of time considering the meaning and value of this much-lauded right. I have concluded that we have vastly overrated it.
I believe voting is to democracy what drying off is to showering.
It’s important to dry off, but should we aggrandize it beyond all other aspects of showering? Imagine raising a generation of people who think drying off is the be-all and end-all of maintaining hygiene. In truth, it’s something we do after completing a long list of other important tasks.
I have begun to think of everything I do in the community as a referendum. If I pick up a bit of trash, I am voting for a clean community. If I leave it there, well, that’s a vote too. If I refrain from violence, even in thought, I am voting for a more loving world. Even though the state has the power to stop me from drying off, it can never keep me from getting into the water of democracy. It’s where we live and I’m gonna splash around as much as I can.
— Troy Chapman, Michigan
