On Tuesday, Andrew Cuomo signed a bill that restores felons right to vote, effective immediately upon their release.
The law codifies a 2018 executive order that allowed for Cuomo to individually pardon parolees. According to the bill text, Department of Corrections officials are required to provide a voter registration form as the felon is leaving the facility. Previously, parolees would have to wait a period of four to six weeks to receive a pardon and then must register to vote on their own.
The law goes into effect immediately.
Other democrat led states also moved to restore voting rights to felons. Last month, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, signed legislation and Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, also a Democrat, took executive action in March restoring voting and other civil rights to former felons as soon as they complete their prison terms.
“People on parole live and work in our cities and towns, and by automatically restoring their right to vote, New York is finally welcoming them as full participants in society.”
Sean Morales-Doyle, deputy director of the Voting Rights and Elections Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, praised the law .
“People on parole live and work in our cities and towns, and by automatically restoring their right to vote, New York is finally welcoming them as full participants in society. That’s a crucial change, one that will ameliorate one of the vestiges of Jim Crow,” Morales-Doyle said in a statement released Wednesday. “Due to the racial disparities in New York’s criminal justice system, nearly three-quarters of those disenfranchised by the ban on voting for people on parole were Black or Latino.”
