“I voted” has special meaning for these Americans

For the first time, Corey Oden voted on Election Day.

Throughout his adult life, Oden, 41, of Birmingham, Alabama, said he was either repeatedly told by probation officers and state officials that he couldn’t vote or didn’t know he could vote after his conviction for check fraud for 24 years. ago.

He served a year of house arrest for “my mistake” and gradually paid the restitution fees associated with his crime. In August, Oden learned he was eligible to vote after a local nonprofit connected him Release our votewhich helps restore voting rights to felons.

Free Our Vote paid the nearly $500 he still owed in restitution, leaving him to no longer “have to hide or feel ashamed or embarrassed,” Oden told USA TODAY. He was excited to get his own “I Voted” sticker instead of wearing his friends during election season.

“I just gave up hope. I never thought this would be possible,” Oden said tearfully last week, imagining filling out his ballot. “I know my hands will shake and I’ll be an emotional wreck.”

“These obstacles don’t make sense”

Forty-eight states have laws that restrict the right to vote of people with felony convictions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. As a result, more than 4 million Americans, about 2 percent of the voting-age population, remain ineligible to vote even after their prison terms end, the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit that focuses on parole, said, citing 2022 statistics.

For many, the persistent obstacle to regaining the right to vote is a fine, fee or restitution payment.

Free Our Vote, a non-partisan technology nonprofit based in Washington, DC, works with other nonprofits to pay these fees and get felons on the voting rolls.

“These hurdles just didn’t make sense,” he said Our Vot founder, Neel Suhtakmeattorney and professor of law at Georgetown University. “We felt we could help these people who had served their time, tried to pay their dues socially and financially and deserved to vote.”

Free Our Vote hopes to restore voting rights to more than 400,000 people in this year’s elections, mostly in the South and Southwest, and expand to nine more states in 2025.

The organization is party-funded with a $265,000 grant from Fast forwarda San Francisco startup that helps early-stage nonprofits with funding, donor access and mentorship.

“The right to vote is central to who we are as Americans, it only seems right that when they’ve completed what it takes to re-enter, they should be given every opportunity to do so,” said co-founder Shannon Farley Fast Forward, for USA TODAY. “The fight for democracy is hard and it takes all of us.”

“If enough of us use our voices, we can make some changes”

The last time Virginia Mireles was eligible to vote was when President Bill Clinton ran for re-election in 1996.

Mireles, 53, a mother of three grown children, has had a hard life. Eight convictions for non-violent crimes, including multiple burglaries, culminated in 17 years in prison while he battled drug addiction.

He went to rehab seven different times, hoping he could stop. After her last conviction in 2013, she vowed to get her life together. She has been clean for 11 years while trying to help her youngest daughter with her own addiction and her oldest son who has been clean for the past two years. She is raising her son’s young daughter.

Mireles, who worked her way up to a call center supervisor for Televerde after working for them during her last term in prison, voted in her state primary at the end of July.

“I think I just started crying and laughing,” she said, recalling the moment. “I feel like I’m trying to participate in the solution. Like I’m not in the background.”

Mireles now volunteers with the Arizona Justice Project to help other felons see if they can vote. She encourages them to email or contact the courts to see if they are eligible to seek a discharge of their prison sentence, have their civil rights restored and any fines reduced or forgiven.

She voted for Kamala Harris for the president, hoping that her granddaughter would have full reproductive rights.

“I want to make sure he has all the options he needs to have and I want to set a good example for him,” Mireles said. “This country is so divided. We don’t have to be so mean to each other. I’m trying to find a solution. I’m trying to help.”

Voting “makes me feel whole”

Last year, Oden, a program coordinator at the TAKE Resource Center, which focuses on advocating for the trans community, met Dori Miles, co-founder of Birmingham-based Return My Vote, which helps offenders to -he regains his voting rights.

Miles innocently asked Oden if he was registered to vote, and Oden sheepishly told him about his situation. Miles, an attorney who also works with the LGBTQ community, thought he could help Oden. She looked at a state database and saw that he was eligible to get his rights back.

“The disenfranchisement rate in Alabama is about 13 percent, and most of them are black, and Corey fell into that category,” Miles said. “I really didn’t know how much the vote meant to him until we had that first conversation.”

Wearing a powder blue suit and a blue and orange patterned tie that will pop against his white dress shirt, Oden voted early on Election Day. He wanted to serve as a role model for his two adult grandsons, who were also voting for the first time, and allow time to lead others to vote as well.

Later Tuesday, he called the experience “liberating.”

“Oddly enough, it makes me feel whole,” said Oden, who voted for Harris. “And when I put that sticker on my chest, I feel more like a contributing member of society and my regretful prayers are answered. That’s how I feel.”