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[D]aniel Jones was 22 when he shot and killed a drug dealer in a Burlington alley in 2002. He was an addict, he says, and the killing was an accident.
Now 16 years into his 25-year sentence at the Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport, Jones is petitioning for an early release that could send him home as soon as next year. Meanwhile, he’s already cast his vote in Vermont’s 2018 primary election.
“I’m not one or the other — Republican or Democrat — but it seems that I lean more towards Republican,” he says. “I’m more on the side of building our economy.”
Vermont and Maine are the only two states that place no restrictions on convicted felons’ voting rights.
Jones first took advantage of those rights ten years ago, when he voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. He had already started to follow the senator’s campaign when a case worker let him know he was allowed to register. “I just felt some kind of passion about it.”
He says voting gives inmates motivation to be productive members of society.
“It’s a good spark for that,” he says. “It tears the wall down between society and people who have committed crimes.”
Preserving ballot access for felons is only one of Vermont’s moves towards getting and keeping more voters enrolled. The state is heading into the 2018 elections with some of the most expansive voting laws in the country.
“Vermont leads the way,” says Natalie Tennant, a former West Virginia secretary of state who’s now a voting rights expert at the Brennan Center for Justice.
Vermonters can register to vote at their polling places on election day, or they can sign up online. This year’s elections will also be the first since the state implemented automatic voter registration, which adds eligible voters to the rolls when they apply for ID cards at the DMV. (Applicants can choose to opt out.)
Vermont’s voting laws complement each other, Tennant says. For example, election-day registration opens access to any potential voters who didn’t recently interact with the DMV.
“There’s not one policy that’s going to break down all the barriers,” she says. “I look at Vermont as a great example of filling in all the cracks.”
Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos says automatic voter registration, or AVR, has already been a success.
New and updated registrations through the DMV increased by 62% in the first six months of 2017, compared to the first six months of 2016, before AVR was implemented. Condos says that’s a striking increase, especially considering that 2017 was not an election year.
But the 2018 elections, like most years without a presidential race, are projected to see low turnout. Will those new registrants vote?
“That’s what we don’t know,” Condos says. “My belief is that we should register every eligible American that we can. Then it’s up to them whether they go vote.”
Tennant says the results from Oregon, the first state to implement AVR, are encouraging. About 40% of the registrants from that state’s DMV-based system voted in the November 2016 election. Plus, she says, “the AVR voters were more likely than the traditional voters to be from rural areas, low-income, lower-educated areas” — demographics that are typically underrepresented at the polls.
Condos’s office won’t know how AVR affects voter turnout until after this year’s elections. Likewise, the overall effect of Vermont offering voting rights to felons, while meaningful to those who take advantage, is difficult to quantify.
Daniel Jones says that only a small percentage of his fellow inmates follow politics or exercise their right to vote.
Why? “I think they’re just defeated,” he says. “They haven’t been heard all their life…and pretty much say, What’s the point? No one cares what I think. I’m not going to make a difference.”
Jones hands out registration forms and ballots to try to encourage other inmates to get involved.
“You have a choice to make a difference, and prove them all wrong,” he tells others. “Instead of being angry or bitter about it, start doing something about it.”
Most states disenfranchise felons, with opponents arguing that people who have broken laws shouldn’t have a say in electing the officials who make them.
Jones believes that’s an unforgiving view. “Where’s the hope in that? When a child makes a mistake, a parent doesn’t shun them, cast them out, and completely take away their rights,” he says. “They forgive them, guide them — make them feel like they do belong, that they can do better.”
There are other ways states have made it more difficult for voters to cast ballots. Some secretaries of state and Republican members of Congress, buoyed by President Donald Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud, have pushed for enhanced restrictions like voter ID laws and purges of voter databases.
According to the Brennan Center’s State of Voting 2018 report, at least eight states have tightened their voting laws since the 2016 election cycle.
Condos has repeatedly pushed back on claims of widespread voter fraud. “The true voter fraud, in my opinion, is the denying of an eligible American the right to cast a ballot,” he says.
But he acknowledges that the process of fighting restrictive voting laws across the country will not likely be resolved anytime soon. “I think it’s a debate we’re going to continue to have.”
Tennant says there are signs that other states are moving in Vermont’s direction, including the fact that 20 are considering implementing automatic voter registration. “We look at that as a bright light among other forces” like voter suppression measures, she says.
Additionally, states like Florida are considering rolling back their felon disenfranchisement laws — a move Tennant says would benefit more than a million would-be voters.
Allowing incarcerated people to vote helps them “feel more as a whole person,” she says. “Everybody has one vote on Election Day. No matter how rich you are, no matter how smart you are, no matter your status in life — you all have that one vote.”
[showhide type=”pressrelease” more_text=”Read full transcript” less_text=”Hide full transcript” hidden=”yes”]
Phone announcer: Hello. This is a prepaid debit call from Daniel Jones, an inmate at the Northern State Correctional Facility.
Hi, is this Daniel?
Daniel Jones: Hello, Michael. Yep, this is Daniel. How are you?
I’m doing well. How are you?
Daniel Jones: I’m good. It’s a good morning, beautiful day.
Well, thanks for taking the time out to chat. I really appreciate it.
Daniel Jones: Yeah, no problem. It’s my pleasure.
Daniel Jones is 38. He’s been behind bars for 16 years, serving a 25 year sentence for a crime he committed in 2002.
Daniel Jones: I was an addict when I was a kid, you know, didn’t get help with that. And it turned into a situation where I was robbing a drug dealer and accidentally took one of their lives. It was a tragic, tragic accident and unintentional, but — so I’m looking for a second chance.
Daniel’s petitioning for an early release that could send him home as soon as next year. But in the meantime, he’s already cast a vote in the 2018 primary election.
Daniel Jones: I voted in the primaries and the locals.
Vermont and Maine are the only two states that don’t place any restrictions on voting rights for convicted felons. Daniel’s taken advantage of those rights for the past 10 years.
Daniel Jones: I started following politics in 2008, before Obama was elected, actually. I voted for him. I was out of state in Kentucky, serving my sentence there, and just became interested in a lot of the stuff that was going on. I felt like some sort of passion about it. And when I found out that I could actually vote as a Vermont inmate, it helped me to feel like I could still feel connected with my community and gave me a little hope.
Can you give me a sense of how many people around you take advantage of it?
Daniel Jones: Yeah. So this is something that I recognized when I voted, is that there was a small percentage of people who actually were taking advantage of their right to vote. And I was curious about that and wondering why. And I think it’s, it’s just they’re defeated in spirit. They feel like they haven’t been heard all their life. It’s why they’re in prison, and, you know, broken. They’re defeated, and pretty much say, you know, what’s the point, no one cares what I think, I’m not going to make a difference. I think that’s what it is.
But for those who do gain that sense of appreciation, it does give them a voice, and it does give them that motivation to want to be a part of their community and change. It’s a good spark for that. It tears the wall down between society and people who have committed crimes and, you know, made mistakes in their past. It allows them to feel like they can make amends and build bridges and become part of their society and a productive member of their society.
I know there’s people out there who say that people who have been convicted of crimes and broken the law shouldn’t have a say in who is helping to create the laws. What’s your response to that?
Daniel Jones: I say that is unforgiveness. That’s a lack of compassion and empathy. You know, where’s the hope in that? People make mistakes. When a child makes a mistake, a parent doesn’t shun them, cast them aside, just completely take all their rights their whole life. No, they forgive them, guide them, and try to be there in a loving way, and make them feel like that they do belong and that they can do better.
I think just the lack of forgiveness — that’s one of the things that is wrong with this this country is not enough forgiveness not enough compassion and love.
Do you talk to other inmates about voting and politics?
Daniel Jones: Yes. I actually tried to get people to vote. I handed out ballot some registration forms. Not many people do follow politics. I hear more of them just complain about it. And a lot of times I just say, you know, if you’re going to complain, do something about it. You have a right. You have an opportunity to actually have a say and do something instead of complaining about it. But it seems like a lot of people are content complaining.
How do you fight against that?
Daniel Jones: It’s hard. It’s frustrating. I got a lot of murmuring and groaning and complaining around me and pessimistic people, and it’s just that defeated spirit that they have. They’re so used to just being cast out and labeled and forgotten about and kind of shunned. It’s embedded in them, you know?
What kind of things do you say to try and break people out of that?
Daniel Jones: That they have to forgive, you know. They also have to forgive, instead of holding grudges and blaming others. And I say that you have a choice to make a difference in and prove them all wrong. Instead of being angry or bitter about it, start doing something about it that’ll make you feel better, that’ll motivate you. You feel like you’re doing something productive, and it just builds you up.
I’m curious how you get information about who’s running in elections.
Daniel Jones: The news. And the papers. I watch news and I read papers and, you know, I follow what’s going on. Not so much lately, because it’s kind of been frustrating, you know, so I kind of had to step back from it.
I’m curious what you think about the candidates that are in the running right now.
Daniel Jones: I am more on the side of building our economy, and it seems that I lean Republican. I’m not one or the other, Republican or Democrat, but it seems that I lean more towards Republican. But I agree with a lot of the things on a democratic standpoint. So I’m kind of like in between on different things.
I’m a man of faith. I believe in looking ahead and looking at what is in front of us at the moment. I believe in truth. I believe in working together in unity, not fighting back and forth for power.
Do you feel like we’ve been seeing some of that happening lately, like more fighting among the parties?
Daniel Jones: I do. More fighting than anything, you know, and it’s distracting. And while people are just like, frustrated, and they just want change. So this is — they’re voting just for change. And that’s why I think Trump was elected, because they just did not a cookie cutter politics. People are starving for change or something. Because the same old same old, you know, hasn’t been doing it.
What do you think that frustration comes from?
Daniel Jones: I think it comes from a lack of hope, a lack of direction, security. Things are uncertain and shaky. Everywhere you turn it’s like, there’s too much bickering back and forth. And there’s no absolute, there’s no security. It’s just one side fighting for power, the other side fighting for power. Every four years, people want to fight for power. And that’s really — it’s frustrating. We need more unity. People working together fighting for truth, justice, and for the people, everyday working people.
Do you think elections help take us closer to that unity? Because I know a lot of times people look at elections as kind of the symbol of those parties fighting each other. Because it’s when you often hear people making speeches and trying to tear the other side down.
Daniel Jones: Yeah, see, I think when they have an opportunity to speak, it should be about, you know, building hope and solutions, and working together. Ways that they can do that. Not about tearing the other party down and focusing on the negatives, because it’s distracting and it’s not, you know, it’s not working.
Preserving ballot access for felons is only one of Vermont’s moves towards getting and keeping more voters enrolled. The state is heading into the 2018 elections with some of the most expansive voting laws in the country.
Natalie Tennant: I just look at Vermont as a great example of really filling in all of the holes, all the cracks.
This is Natalie Tennant. Natalie used to be the Secretary of State in West Virginia. Now she’s a voting rights expert at the Brennan Center for Justice.
Natalie Tennant: You know, one year, Vermont gets passed same day voter registration, and then the next year, it’s automatic voter registration. You see that there’s not one policy that’s going to break down all the barriers. So that’s why it’s important to have all of these different policies in place that help to reach all the voters and reach the voters where they are. I would say that Vermont leads the way.
Next week’s primaries are the first statewide elections since Vermont implemented automatic voter registration. Here’s how Secretary of State Jim Condos describes that system.
Jim Condos: When you contact the Department of Motor Vehicles for your driver’s license, you will be given an opportunity to opt out, if you don’t want to register. They’ll ask you, do you want to register to vote. And the reason being is that they asked the same three questions. For instance, for REAL ID you have to be an American citizen 18 or over and a Vermont resident. It’s the same three questions that we asked on the voter registration form and once they’re considered registered, they will get a letter that will tell them you’ve been registered to vote, here’s your location, whatever. It’s just basic information. Got it?
And you said the system’s been working pretty well so far. How do you go about measuring that?
Jim Condos: Well, we can measure it because we have we have a voter registration database going back, at least, to the 1970s. So we can actually see how the voter registrations have worked in the past. It’s available on our website, and you can actually pull it up yourself. And you can see how the numbers have changed. What we have seen from automatic voter registration is there used to be a huge drop off in the off election year. For instance, in 2016. In January of 2016, we had about 425,000 registered voters. By Election Day it was 470 [thousand]. Since then, and with the implementation of AVR, we haven’t seen that huge drop off. What we see is maybe five or 10,000, and less. It seems to be more consistent.
Natalie Tennant: You know, a number I point to often for Vermont is, the first six months in 2017 compared to the first six months of 2016, it was like a 62% increase of voter registration through the DMV of new and updated voter registration. And and you can even add in there, 2016 was a was a presidential year. So you can see the impact that it has. I believe some of those numbers slowed down a little bit in Vermont, maybe the second half of 2017 and into ‘18. But still strong numbers.
So we know that automatic voter registration is adding certain numbers of people to the rolls. But how do we find out: are those people actually voting?
Natalie Tennant: The focus for measuring success for automatic voter registration has been Oregon. Because they had, in 2015, implemented in ‘16, had the full election in the fall of ‘16. And so we’re able to point to some of those numbers. In 2016, about 226,000 people were registered through the DMV in Oregon. 100,000 of those voted in the November election. And what they found was that the AVR-registered voters were more likely than the traditional voters to be from rural areas, low income, low educated areas. So that’s how you can measure, through their voter history. And that’s what they were able to do.
So 100,000 out of 226 [thousand] was about 40% of the AVR registrants.
I put the same question to Condos.
So we’re seeing more people get registered, even in off years. How do we know that those people are going to come vote?
Jim Condos: That’s what we don’t know. My belief is that we should register every eligible American that we can. And then it’s up to them whether they actually vote.
Natalie Tennant: By having people registered to vote, that is the first step. You know, the ultimate step is, yes, in getting them to vote, but you’ve broken down a barrier that people got registered. Now Vermont kind of catches them both ways. It’s a very complementary system. Because if you have automatic voter registration, you’re getting those folks who have interacted with the DMV, but say they didn’t get to the DMV, you know, most of us go every five years, right, to update our license. But say you hadn’t been to the DMV. Well, Vermont catches them on election day. You decide, oh, this is a hot heated race for whatever office it is. And I want to go vote. So you can go on election day. That’s why the these two policies are complementary. Automatic voter registration would lighten the load for for a state that has same day registration and same day registration can pick up anyone who’s fallen through the cracks and haven’t interacted with a state agency.
So we’ve got automatic voter registration, we’ve got same day registration. I know that we also have a pretty long early voting window. And I know also that we are one of the few states that allows incarcerated felons to vote. Big picture, with all these policies put together, how do we compare to other states in terms of how we decide who’s eligible to vote and how they’re allowed to vote?
Natalie Tennant: Well, deciding who’s eligible to vote is pretty similar across the board, except for Vermont and Maine, that allow those who are incarcerated to vote while they are incarcerated. There are some states that allow you to vote after you’ve served your probation or parole like in West Virginia, there are some states that have a lifetime ban on voting. Interestingly, folks in Florida are going to get to vote on that. They’re going to get to decide if people under certain conditions have a felony, if they’ll be restored their right to vote.
Because I mean, just think about this. And there’s no use for me to say it in Vermont, because it’s truly preaching to the choir, you can’t get any better than what Vermont and Maine are doing by allowing those who are incarcerated to vote. But, you know, if we want to rehabilitate people, and we want people to be able to get back into society after you’re served time, yeah, you did something wrong, he should be punished for it. Yeah, you should serve your time. But when you’ve served, you deserve to get back into society. Otherwise, there might be situations when you feel you are feeling less of a citizen, and you might go back into your old ways. And so having that right to vote makes that difference. You feel more as a whole person more as an equal because what does voting do? It’s It’s equal. Everybody has one vote on Election Day, no matter how rich you are, no matter how smart you are, no And your status in life, you all have that one vote.
Jim Condos: People should be allowed to use their constitutional right to cast a ballot, regardless of their situation. Homeless people are allowed to vote, they’re allowed to register, they’re allowed to vote. The same for incarcerated individuals. The same for people who own homes, the same for people who rent homes. We make no distinction there.
And what we’ve seen around the country since 2010 is a lot of voter suppression. For instance, voter ID, purging of voter rolls, things like that. What we’re trying to do is make sure that people have the opportunity to vote, to be able to cast that ballot.
You’re involved with other Secretaries of State, you’ve testified before Congress. Looking at it on a national level, does it become problematic when there are states that are providing such divergent levels of access to voters?
Jim Condos: I guess I would say that I’ve been pretty vocal about it personally. It does bother me when I see other states that are reducing early vote periods, sometimes from 30 days to 20 days or 10 days, or even eliminating it. It bothers me when I see voter ID, because voter ID is one of the single most discriminatory practices. It discriminates against young adults, discriminates against seniors, low income and minorities.
I just wonder what is going to happen next. I mean, it seems like there are these two very divergent paths that different states are taking. What do you see in the near future for this debate about voting rights across the country?
Jim Condos: First of all, let’s be clear, widespread voter fraud is nonexistent. There have been several studies that have been done. I think there was one done by a Loyola University law professor out in California. He reviewed with 1 billion votes in federal, state and local elections over the course of about 10 or 12 years or something. 1 billion votes, and he found possibly 31 cases of potential voter fraud.
Most voter fraud that occurs, really, it’s accidental, or it’s a misinterpretation of the law. To me, it just is incredible that we are still having this conversation from time to time. You know, voting is a constitutional right. And in fact, the courts have been starting to uphold or put blocks in place to prevent obstructions from being placed in front of people who are trying to vote. We shouldn’t have things that prevent people from voting.
Do you think there’s hope that we could kind of move on from this debate?
Jim Condos: I hope so. I would hope so. And I think if we have states like Vermont and Oregon and Washington, and other states — California, even — you know, Maine. That if we can show the way, that there is a better way, and that we protect, we still protect voters rights, but at the same time are making it easier for people to be able to cast a ballot. I think that that that will show a strong path forward to do the right thing.
Daniel Jones, the inmate at Northern State Correctional Facility, hopes his next vote will be from a polling place.
Daniel Jones: I filed a PCR and —
What’s a PCR?
Daniel Jones: Post conviction release. It was based on an issue: my lawyer wasn’t present during the PSI, which is a pre-sentence investigation that they do, where they would decide what kind of a sentence I got. I could argue for the low end of a plea and the state could argue for the high end of a plea. So I pled out. I was not prepared, and kind of said things that were used against me during my sentencing. So it kind of prejudiced my sentence. So that’s what the post conviction is based on. It’s allowed another chance to argue for the low end of my plea, which is 15, which is the low end, or at least some of my time off, so that I can get a second chance and go home. And so that’s where we’re at right now. Waiting for the judge to decide.
It’s been seven years I’ve been waiting for this, and hoping. A lot has happened since, a lot of change. You know, I came in at 22. I’m 38 this month, going on 38. Just hopefully, you know, to get out, get a second chance at life, and just live, you know.
So when this decision comes down, what could that mean? You know, you’re out in the next year? What’s the timeline like?
Daniel Jones: Here’s what I’ve asked for: eight years off my minimum, which would leave me one year left. So what that would do is, I would do the that they offered facility, and then I will be eligible to go home. And that’s what I’m hoping for. That’s what we’re asking for.
We’ll see. You know, they don’t know who I am. They just know who I was 16 years ago. They had the paper in front of them of my history, my past, but they have no clue who I am today. And that’s kind of frustrating and stuff. That’s why I say, you know, there needs to be more focusing on the present and the future and not so much on the past. Have, you know, forgiveness and second chances. People need to believe in that more, because people like me need that hope. They need to know that they’re not going to be labeled and stigmatized the rest of their life.
Well, Daniel, I I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time out.
Daniel Jones: This has been really good talking to you. I’m glad I can help. Thank you for listening. Bye.
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