VOTING BEHIND BARS: WHY IT MATTERS

BY ROBERT BARTON Co-Founder of More Than Our Crimes and currently incarcerated

When I think about Washington D.C.’s recent restoration of voting rights for those incarcerated, I instantly think of a quote from Joel Castón, the first currently incarcerated person to be elected to public office in the United States: “What other states can learn is that if you are allowing your incarcerated population to function within this democratic process, you are teaching them how to be citizens.” If we are truly committed to being a country of second chances and ensuring that formerly incarcerated people contribute meaningfully when they return home, then the whole nation must follow D.C.’s lead.

The benefits of allowing incarcerated people to vote are obvious, but the challenge is clear as well: how do we encourage this population to vote and even want to be invested in the democratic process?

For the majority of us, we’ve always felt as though we were forced to live our lives along the margins of this great nation as second-class citizens. Instead of being excited about regaining our ability to vote, most of the men from D.C. that I have encountered were indifferent to their rights being restored. This disillusion stems from the fact that most of us hail from communities that are highly disenfranchised and where there isn’t a lot of trust in government.

Take my story as an example: I grew up in the poorest ward in Southeast D.C. I can vividly remember as a child with my mother walking past my elementary school where they had set up voting stations and asking her why there were so few people voting.

“Boy, ain’t nobody voting for people who don’t give a damn about us,” she dismissively replied.

This always stuck with me. This was our community’s reality. To us, it seemed like the only time politicians were concerned about the plight of our neighborhoods was during election season. Once the election was over, they were gone, but the disinvestment in our community—the dilapidated schools, the rampant poverty and the potholed streets—remained.

I carried this belief until I returned to the D.C. jail after years of incarceration and participated in the Georgetown Prison Scholars Program. In those classes, I changed my outlook on politics and realized I could use civic engagement to advocate for myself and others. In conversations with other students, I was reassured that my voice did matter and I learned how I could use it.

I set out to give other incarcerated people that same understanding. I founded More Than Our Crimes – an organization created to be the voice of the voiceless. One of my campaigns has been the Voting Project, which strives to give incarcerated people a say in policies that would directly impact them. I knew that in order for anyone to want to vote, they needed to feel like it would really mean something. I knew that the only way to galvanize this voting bloc was to make them feel heard.

I have a network of incarcerated D.C. natives in the federal prison system and distribute a weekly newsletter that enlightens subscribers about things happening in the criminal justice space. This newsletter educates them on the importance of voting, provides information on candidates’ platforms, and tips on how to register. It also gives them a forum to speak on the topics that concern them and provides a space for self-advocacy.

I’ve already seen it work: recently, one of my subscribers saw an article about the recent uptick in violent crime in D.C. and our Mayor’s response to it. He reached out and asked, “Rob, do you think we could be used in some way to keep kids from incarceration and help them not to follow in our footsteps?” This was exactly what I wanted. He was becoming invested in being an active community member because of his reignited connection to politics.

This is the power of restoring our right to vote and why each state should commit to re-enfranchising incarcerated people. Although there have been a few hiccups along the way, such as inconsistent access to our ballots and not enough time to vote because of ongoing lockdowns, we continue to push through, now that we know our voice matters. We are eager to vote and eager to be productive community members and citizens. •

Robert Barton has been incarcerated since he was a teenager and is from Washington D.C. He is currently incarcerated in Florida. He is the co-founder of More Than Our Crimes, an organization telling stories of and giving a voice to currently incarcerated individuals.