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Allow Prisoners A Voice
By Charles Ludwig Bickerstaff
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The local newspapers, The Gazette in Sterling and Rockfalls, Illinois, and the Telegraph in Dixon, Illinois, used to give voice to the disenfranchised. Through the years, these papers would print, in their "Readers Voice" column, letters from people imprisoned at Dixon and Stateville Correctional Centers. But no longer. Even my letters supporting small-town newspapers or on voting rights go unpublished.
I am an Army brat and Navy veteran. Before that, I was a citizen and blessed with certain obligations I took seriously and encouraged others to do. One of those obligations was voting.
Prisoners in Illinois are not allowed to vote even if they are citizens of the United States. Why? According to Richard Haass, a conservative and former State Department official, "democracy requires that citizens take an active part including an obligation to vote. We don't require people to vote, but politicians make it difficult and often disenfranchise swaths of folks who could and should be voting." (The Bill of Obligations, 2023, p. 53)
Nationwide, an estimated 4.6 million Americans are unable to vote as a result of laws that disenfranchise persons with a felony conviction. (American Sociological Review, vol. 62, 2002). Twelve states do not allow those who have completed their sentence to cast a ballot. Fortunately, Illinois is not one of those twelve, but still, the state has chosen to further penalize and withhold First Amendment rights to some thirty-thousand who are currently behind bars, including several thousand who are military veterans. (www.sentencingproject.org) Prisoners in Maine, Vermont, and The District of Columbia are allowed to cast a ballot.Why not in Illinois? Shouldn't all US citizens be treated equally?
Until my conviction, I had voted in ten presidential elections. I even cast an absentee ballot from the Lee County jail in 2008. Did I suddenly lose my citizenship in 2009?
Prisoners are counted in the local census. Those communities get extra funding and extra representation based on those incarcerated. Many still pay state and federal taxes. Why are they not allowed to help choose leaders and influence policy in a government of, by, and for the people?
Charles Ludwig Bickerstaff is a Navy veteran imprisoned in Illinois. He was an active member of the Stateville Veterans Group until the closing of Stateville Prison in 2024.
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Charles Ludwig Bickerstaff speaking at the Stateville Veterans Group's
Remembrance and Rights, 2024 Memorial Day program.
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