By Gabriel Sayegh
Director, State Organizing and Policy Project
Drug Policy Alliance Network 

An attack on democracy is taking place in Alabama as hundreds of thousands of people are denied the ability to vote.

Not only does Alabama take away the right to vote for people with felony convictions, it is one of just a handful of states where people's voting rights are not restored once their sentences are complete. That's 250,000 Alabamians who can never cast a ballot for the rest of their lives!

Even more outrageous, some of the people who aren't allowed to vote never should have lost their voting rights in the first place! Under the Alabama Constitution, people convicted of nonviolent, low-level drug crimes never lose their voting rights, even while they are in jail or prison--but current state policy does not actually let them vote.

An incredible 70,000 Alabamians convicted of low-level drug offenses, who are actually eligible voters, are denied the chance to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed voting right.

Let's restore democracy to Alabama--take action now! Send a message to your state legislators and let them know you won't stand for this unjust and unconstitutional policy.

For more on the voting rights issue, read this important op-ed in the Birmingham News by the Reverend Kenneth Glasgow, executive director of The Ordinary People's Society (TOPS), our state partner.

TOPS has been going into prisons and jails around the state to register eligible voters. Rev. Glasgow said in his op-ed, "After visiting jails and prisons throughout the state and registering thousands of voters, I can tell you these people are not being notified of their voting rights, nor is there a system in place that allows them to exercise those rights."