The Voter Enfranchisement Project

The Problem
Walk into any school in the South Bronx and ask the students if they know someone who has graduated from high school. A handful of hands will go up. Then ask them if they know someone who has been arrested. Every hand will go up. In low-income communities of color like the South Bronx, the criminal justice system does more than tear families and communities apart. It also prevents these communities from exercising their political power to get the resources they need to break the cycle of poverty and incarceration. In 48 of the 50 states, felon disenfranchisement laws bar over five million individuals wth felony convictions from voting for varying periods of time. In addition, hundreds of thousands of eligible voters are discouraged from casting ballots by the confusion created by these laws or are actively fed the urban myth that people who have been arrested, charged, or convicted of a misdemeanor or a felony cannot vote.

Community Education and Outreach
In order to participate in the political process, people need to understand their voting rights and know how to navigate the electoral process. VEP has developed materials and trainings that address the barriers to voting faced by people who have been through the criminal justice system. By providing these trainings and advocacy tools to grassroots organizers and services providers in low-income communities throughout New York City, VEP reaches thousands of people each year and increases the ability of these organizations to mobilize eligible voters.

Informing people that they have the right to vote is just the beginning. To make civic participation meaningful and increase voter turnout, potential voters need relevant information about local candidates' stances on the issues that matter most to them. In 2006, VEP launched the Better Ballots: New York Voter Education Guide (www.BetterBallotsNY.org), a web-based tool for voters, organizers, and service providers to design and download voter guides in English and Spanish. With responses elicited from candidates on issues such as Election Day voter registration, parolee voting, and the Rockefeller Drug Laws, Better Ballots provides advocates with a tool to hold elected officials accountable to their previous statements.

Systemic Reform
Each election cycle, VEP collaborates with Election Protection, the nation’s largest nonpartisan voterprotection coalition, staffing dozens of New York City polling sites with trained law student and community volunteers. These volunteers educate voters, monitor polling places, document problems and work with election officials to resolve them. The data collected by our volunteers - detailing where there were broken machines, where voters were asked for identification improperly, and when provisional ballots were used incorrectly - provides critical information for the election reform efforts of VEP and partner organizations.

In collaboration with the Brennan Center and the Legal Action Center, VEP is in the process of developing a statewide campaign to improve compliance with New York's felon disenfranchisement laws by advocating with the boards of elections, integrating voter education and registration into the Departments of Probation, Correction and Parole, and ultimately enfranchising people under parole supervision.

In addition to many generous individual supporters, VEP was founded with the Open Society Institute’s Social Justice Fellowship and is funded by the North Star Fund, the Scherman Foundation, and the Public Interest Law Foundation.