A class-action lawsuit filed Friday aims to restore the voting rights of people in Louisiana who are out of prison on parole or probation.

VOTE / Bruce S. Reilly Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards signs a bill banning job application discrimination against formerly incarcerated individuals.



Nearly 70,000 people in Louisiana are being unfairly denied the right to vote because they were convicted of a felony and are now on probation or parole, a new class action lawsuit filed Friday said. The convicted felons say they are being “wrongfully excluded from registering to vote and voting” based on a 1974 law that suspended voting rights for imprisoned felons, according to a copy of state court complaint obtained by BuzzFeed News. Two years later, the law was changed to include denying voting rights to convicts out of jail on probation and parole. When Louisiana’s voter disenfranchisement law was originally entered into the state constitution in 1974, it read that every citizen, 18 years of age and older, has the right to register and vote “except that this right may be suspended while a person ...is under an order of imprisonment for conviction of a felony.” Ex-offenders in Louisiana now contend that the 1976 addition of people on probation and parole “overhauled” voter disenfranchisement in the state. They claim that the law currently denies voting rights to 70,000 Louisianans — citing the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics, which says there are 41,761 on probation and 27,615 on parole. The lawsuit comes after Louisiana’s state legislature failed to pass House Bill 598, which would have limited the suspension of a person's voting rights to the period of their incarceration. The bill came up for a vote in House in April but failed by a margin of 37 votes in favor to 60 votes against. The bill's failure was a blow to proponents, who hoped it would pass on the heels of the state approving a "Ban the Box" bill, which made it illegal to ask someone to disclose their criminal history on an application for a state job.

Wikipedia The entrance to Louisiana state penitentiary Angola Prison.



Friday's lawsuit is being filed by Louisiana-based organization Voice of the Ex-Offender (VOTE) and names several convicted felons who provided their personal stories of voter disenfranchisement for the case. One of the named plaintiffs, Kenneth Johnson, is a 67-year-old black man living in New Orleans who served 18 months in Vietnam in the 1960s. After Johnson returned home from the war, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and became addicted to heroin. In 1972, Johnson was convicted of felony murder in the robbery and fatal shooting of another Vietnam veteran. He spent 22 years in jail. While in prison, Johnson founded the program Veterans Incarcerated. After he was released from prison in 1993, he founded his own successful paralegal services company working with attorneys in New Orleans. Because his conviction includes a lifetime parole sentence, under current Louisiana law Johnson will never be allowed to vote. “Despite his service to his country, his successful transition back to the community, his contribution to the federal and state governments by paying his taxes, he will never have the opportunity to vote and participate in the democratic process before he dies,” the complaint said. One of the architects of the lawsuit and another named plaintiff in the case, Bruce Reilly, 42, is the deputy director of VOTE, as well as a formerly incarcerated convicted murderer who later received his law degree from Tulane University after he was released from prison.

Facebook Bruce Reilly