An Open Letter to People Who Can Vote in the USA
Please, PLEASE for the love of ALL that is good, do me a favor. Like, the biggest favor possible.
Everyone in your houses, if you are eligible, register to vote, ensure you are on that registry, and actually go vote.
Right now, people outside with their voting rights are the voices of the people like me inside who cannot vote, and the people who just left prison and still cannot vote. Florida disenfranchises prisoners, and makes it damn near impossible to get our voting rights back here: we have to be out of prison, off probation, pay off ALL our fines and restitution, and then, if you carry certain convictions that have absolutely nothing to do with voter fraud, treason, or sedition (literally: murder or a sex offense), Petition the State Governor for permission to vote again in Florida. Some states don't even allow for the petition to get your rights back.
If I live in Florida for all of my sentence, if no one votes for change, I may be almost 70 by the time I can have a voice in how I am governed in this country and state again. Seriously.
Oregon, by contrast, would give me my rights back as soon as I leave prison, never mind parole or probation, or fines, or nature of charges. I served my in-fences time, I left the fences, I get my voice back and can keep it as long as I stay out the fences. I can object to a candidate by submitting a ballot, I can root for a candidate by submitting a ballot, I can participate in the American Process. Heck, in Oregon, the polling place practically comes to YOU to ensure you have a chance to vote: go check your mailbox.
Maine and Vermont take it a step further by not disenfranchising prisoners during their sentences; you can ask for a ballot, fill it out, and mail it. Steering your nation is important, and they get it.
A further favor...
Pay attention to what's being voted for: don't just vote a party line because it is a party line.
Vote for people who show a history of working for the changes we need to see: prison reforms (more education in prison, more treatment options before prison, more community building to empty the prison pipeline before it outflows into a prison reception center), less NIMBYism ("oh, we can't have a homeless shelter in MY neighborhood, but do something about the bums sleeping on the street, they're grosssss"), equal rights for everyone, decarceration instead of incarceration, more tools to keep people in their communities and in their families until there is truly no other option...
Please do this for me. Please. I have to vote vicariously through the voting rights of others to get things to happen. Your vote matters, because it's my vote, too. You who can vote give voices to us who have been silenced by draconian states who have found ways to steal the show.
Look over there for the dog and pony, there's a good madamsir.
Naw, look over here, it's a polling center.
Let's get out this vote, and every vote.
- J