With the election just days away, Mirage Davis is both excited and anxious. For the first time, she will be casting a ballot, and she doesn't take her right to vote lightly.
Davis, 29, who lives in eastern Kentucky, is enthusiastic about Democratic Senate candidate Amy McGrath, but is still undecided in the presidential election. Seeing a woman on the ticket compelled her to vote inthis year’s election, Davis said, adding that she wants to see more women run for office in the state.
But Davis, a registered independent, didn’t always have a say in politics; convicted of possessing stolen property and drugs, she and tens of thousands others with felony records had been barred from voting until last year, when Kentucky's governor gave them back that most democratic of rights.
“I've gone my whole life feeling like I'm invisible — and I'm not invisible," said Davis, who is making a point to vote in person. "And it's empowering being a woman, a felon, and having the right to vote."
Nearly 5.2 million Americans are unable to cast a ballot in this year's election because of felony convictions, according to the Sentencing Project, a group that advocates for criminal justice changes. Many states automatically restore voting rights to those who complete their prison sentences, but Kentucky, along with Iowa, Florida, and Virginia, until recently had permanently disenfranchised the majority of felons.
Just after taking office last December, Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, ended the state’s lifetime voting ban for more than 170,000 Kentuckians who have completed their sentences for nonviolent crimes.
“I believe in the power of forgiveness, and those who have committed nonviolent, nonsexual crimes and have served their time deserve to be full participants in society,” Beshear told NBC News in a recent interview. “Part of the dignity in being an American is the ability to make your voice heard through your vote.”
Unlike some other states, those who are re-enfranchised in Kentucky are not required to pay fines or restitution before regaining their right to vote — an issue that has become a major political conflict in the key election battleground of Florida. Before Beshear's executive order, about 9 percent of Kentuckians were ineligible because of their felony records, making the state's disenfranchisement rate the third highest in the country, according to the Sentencing Project.
Now, as a result of the order, Kentucky millennials with a felony record, like Davis, will be able to vote for the first time this year. While some have been left out of the political process for much of their adult lives, many say they are now motivated to cast their ballots for a variety of reasons — and they hope to see more people their age vote given the low turnout among the state's millennials in 2016.
“Women for centuries have been working really hard to make a change, and it would be a shame for us to stop that progression by not casting a vote,” Davis said. “I want women like me to know that they have a voice in this election.”
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October 31, 2020 at 08:14PM
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'I'm not invisible': Kentucky millennials with felony records head to the polls for first time - NBC News
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