NPR

For the formerly incarcerated, voting for the first time is also about those who can't

By Elena Moore,

Charlotte West

Published November 3, 2024 at 1:00 AM PST

On election night, Craig Muhammad doesn’t plan to be glued to the television. He’s more invested in continuing the work he started in prison as a mediator in the community violence prevention space.

As he waited for an open voting booth, Craig Muhammad looked down at the unmarked ballot in his hands.

“I did 42 years in prison. Why am I shaking?” he asked, letting out a small laugh.

Muhammad has seen presidents come and go, political sentiments move from right and left and the country become more divided. All he could do was watch.

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But after spending more than half of his life in the Maryland prison system, Muhammad came home at the end of September. About a month later, he registered to vote and cast a ballot in the 2024 election.

“It went beautiful,” Muhammad said as he walked out of a polling place in downtown Baltimore.

“It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was,” he added. “But God … I’m 64 years old. I voted today for the first time in my life. Wow. I can’t wait to tell my sister.”

“I think what's going to be more important for me is to hit the streets and find somebody who needs a conflict resolved … I think that both candidates want a safer community,” he said. “Of course, I want my candidate I voted for to win. But Craig Muhammad ain’t going to lose no sleep no matter who wins.”

At his sister’s house, a short drive away, Muhammad described the experience as both emotional and empowering.

“I let out a big sigh — I looked out the corner of my eye … to make sure nobody [had] seen me do it — and then I said, ‘I did it,’” he said. “And I’m going to do it next year and the next four years … I’m going to encourage other people to vote.”

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In 25 states, including Maryland, people can vote as soon as they get out of prison. But many others have felony disenfranchisement laws, which partially or completely bar formerly incarcerated people from voting. That patchwork of laws can cause confusion and frustration, leaving some newly released citizens unaware of or unable to exercise their rights.

“The right to vote is going to vary quite a bit across different states in the U.S.,” said Ariel White, a professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It can be really challenging for people to get accurate information about what the law is and how it might be applied to them.”

A ballot in the name of those who cannot vote

When Elizabeth Shatswell, 40, saw an organization registering people to vote on campus at the University of Puget Sound, she had no intention of asking about her eligibility. Instead, she went over because they were giving out bright blue rubber ducks that were emblazoned with the word “VOTE,” and she wanted one.

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When Elizabeth Shatswell first voted in Washington's primary in the spring, she was surprised by how simple and a bit of a "let down," the process it was. She shared her experience with some friends from Virginia, not knowing they weren't able to vote, and they got upset with her. Now she sees voting as a "privilege," even though "it shouldn't be a privilege because we're all citizens. Right?"

“I was like, ‘I have a criminal history. I can't vote. That's not for me. But can I have a duck?’” said Shatswell, who was released from prison last spring after serving 23 years and was finishing her degree.

But on top of giving her two rubber ducks, the organizers also shared that in Washington state formerly incarcerated people can vote.

“I got so excited,” said Shatswell, who is now a correctional education manager at JSTOR, working to increase academic resources in prisons. “I never really thought that that was going to be a privilege or something that I could do.”

“Voting specifically for me is a way to address the fact that I didn't have any autonomy over the decisions in my life for 23 years and that people continue today to not have autonomy over their lives,” she added.

After finishing her degree Elizabeth Shatswell, 40, now serves as a correctional education manager at JSTOR Access Labs, which works to increase academic resources in prisons. — After finishing her degree Elizabeth Shatswell, 40, now serves as a correctional education manager at JSTOR, where she works to increase academic resources in prisons.

Though Shatswell was released from prison in Washington, she began her sentence in her home state of Virginia — which largely does not allow formerly incarcerated people with felony convictions to vote.

“I'm carrying all the people that can't vote in my vote,” she said. “And that's an honor.”

Geography dictates voting rights

An estimated 4 million U.S. citizens are unable to cast a ballot, according to a recent report from The Sentencing Project.

It further estimates that 1 in 22 Black Americans of voting age can’t vote, three and a half times that of other Americans.

Johnny Le'Dell Pippins, 55, is one of them. He received clemency from Illinois and was recently released from prison after 27 years. He isn’t allowed to cast a ballot this year.

After 27 years in prison, Johnny Le'Dell Pippins, who goes by Dell, was shocked to see how many individuals and families in his community of Iowa City, Iowa were houseless or struggling to get by. "It brings me to tears," he said, describing how during the summer when he sold barbeque for some extra income, he would give away extra meals to those in need.

“I'm part of the process. I put gas in the car, so I get to help decide where we go,” he said. “I should have that inalienable right of every American.”

After obtaining his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in prison, Pippins is now studying for a Ph.D. in criminology at the University of Iowa.

If he were back in Illinois, he would be voting in this election, but Iowa partially restricts access for those with past felony convictions.

Pippins said he first started paying closer attention to politics after realizing how disenfranchisement — which he said is “steeped in racism” — has ripple effects.

“Hardly any of these young men who were locked up with me … were interested in voting or had ever voted,” Pippins remembered. “It was because their parents hadn’t voted. They had been disenfranchised. And so, by default, we’re disenfranchising one generation after another.”

Overall, formerly incarcerated people also have relatively low levels of voter turnout, professor White of MIT explained.

"This is a community where you see people often ... expressing lower trust in government," she said.

White also stressed that formerly incarcerated voters are not a politically monolithic group.

Dell Pippins and his cohorts listen during a class in North Hall at the University of Iowa in Iowa City on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023. Pippins is pursuing a doctorate in sociology in Iowa after obtaining a master’s degree in statistical science from the University of Idaho, studying remotely from prison.

There’s an assumption that justice-involved people will tend to vote Democrat because of their experience being on the receiving end, but that may not always be the case. In an October poll from the Marshall Project<, which surveyed 54,000 people in prisons and jails, “roughly half” supported former President Donald Trump. Notably, the sample had a larger representation of white respondents compared to the overall prison population.

If he could vote, Pippins said he would back Vice President Harris. And while he has stayed politically engaged, he believes being disenfranchised has affected his patriotism.

“[Voting] is your ticket,” he said. “You get to help decide. … And what you have to say that matters. To not have that is, I'm still just a prisoner. I'm a prisoner with a new address.”

"That country that I've always loved ... finally feels like mine"

Across the country in Los Angeles, Kunlyna Tauch, 36, is newly home after being released on Oct. 2.

“Being able to vote for the first time within my first three weeks feels like that country that I always loved, that I always knew was my own — it feels like it's finally mine,” he said.

Both Kunlyna Tauch and his father, Kunthir Oum, are voting for the first time this year. Oum is a naturalized citizen from Cambodia and had never voted before.

He voted for Harris, even though his experience of the vice president is personal.

Tauch originally received a 50-year-to-life sentence as a teenager in 2008. Harris later served as attorney general of California, which overlapped with his appeals process, and Tauch remembers her name on some of his court documents.

Harris has been criticized by Democrats, especially on the left, over her record as a prosecutor and California’s "top cop." But as a self-described progressive, Tauch says that her history doesn’t alter his feelings about the 2024 race.

“I'm voting for her because her values align with mine. I don't care if she's on my paperwork. That was her job. I can see the contention, but the truth is people change,” he said. “I don't think she's as bad as people make her out to be as a prosecutor.”

He’s focused on the down-ballot races and has gotten involved in local politics, canvassing for a state assemblymember in the weeks between his release and the election.

"A lot of people in the Cambodian community don't feel heard," Kunlyna Tauch said. "I know about untapped populations. I came from one. Prison is a huge untapped population. Maybe it just took somebody to say, 'hey, I'm [going to] vote.' And my dad was like, 'me too.'"

It’s an experience he’s since talked about with his father, Kunthir Oum, a naturalized citizen originally from Cambodia. During their conversation, Tauch learned something: His father had never voted before either.

“He literally asked me, ‘Can you help me vote?’” Tauch said.

They worked on the floor and went through the options. Tauch described helping his father research different candidates and propositions on the California ballot.

“I had a proud father moment for my dad. And, you know, he was cheesing the whole time,” he recalled. “Those are the moments that made struggling for 18 years worth it.”

This article was written with Charlotte West, an education reporter covering prisons for Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education. Sign up for College Inside, her biweekly newsletter on the future of postsecondary education in prisons.