In response, we are now seeing an unprecedented amount of voter suppression bills introduced in state legislatures. They range from voter identification bills, closing polling locations in majority Black areas, voter roll purges, and even not allowing water to be distributed to people waiting in long lines to vote.
I am renewing my commitment to “Unlock the Vote” by reintroducing legislation that gives those on probation and parole their fundamental right to vote. I am also refiling legislation that would end the practice of prison gerrymandering in our state. – State Representative Rasheen Aldridge
Last summer in the Missouri Legislature we saw hearings called for the sole purpose of inflaming fears that our state’s elections are corrupt. In fact, our Secretary of State has said the 2020 election was by far “the safest.”
The targeted suppression of Black voters in the United States is nothing new. One of the original tactics in the voter suppression playbook is barring the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated from the right to vote.
In Missouri, former felons’ voting rights can be restored but only after completing probation and parole. This restriction on the right to vote is nothing short of taxation with representation and entirely antithetical to this nation’s founding protest.
Our current law keeps over 60,000 Missourians from participating in the democratic process. Missourians that work and pay their taxes want to contribute to their neighborhoods. We know one way to stop recidivism is by including those formerly incarcerated in our society and giving them ownership in their community.
Instead, we tell these folks that their voice is unwanted by saying, ‘you can work, but you can’t vote.’ We tell them they cannot have a voice in what happens at their children’s schools or what happens in their state.
A lesser-known dilution of the Black vote is the practice of prison gerrymandering. Every 10 years, U.S. Census data is taken. That data is used to draw city, state, and congressional legislative districts. The current system in Missouri counts people who are incarcerated in the district where the prison lies, even though most prison sentences are less than 10 years.
Therefore, rural communities, where most prisons are located, receive inflated population numbers. Those respective elected representatives have no accountability to the thousands who cannot vote housed in their districts. Through our racist system of mass incarceration, this gives rural, mostly white districts outsized power in the decisions that affect our daily lives.
This year I am renewing my commitment to “Unlock the Vote” by reintroducing legislation that gives those on probation and parole their fundamental right to vote. I am also refiling legislation that would end the practice of prison gerrymandering in our state. For far too long, stripping voting rights and gerrymandering have been tools used by those in power to silence the voices of marginalized, Black and brown, communities. With this legislation we can begin to shift Missouri from a state that encourages voting rather than suppresses it.
You vote and your voice matter.
Rasheen Aldridge is state representative of the 78th District
