Last month in Texas, a woman was sentenced to five years in prison for voting as a convicted felon. In 2016, Crystal Mason was released from a former charge, and she wanted to participate in the presidential elections. In November 2016, after her release, she voted for Donald Trump. If she were in Indiana, there wouldn’t have been a problem. If she were in Nevada, she would never be able to vote again. But because she was on parole in Texas, when she cast her ballot, she unwittingly committed another crime.

This staggeringly confusing conviction is not a problem confined to the Lone Star state. According to ProCon.org, forty-eight of our fifty states disenfranchise convicted felons. As part of their sentence, every state except for Maine and Vermont takes away felons’ right to vote. And across these forty-eight states, there are five different variations in this law. Many states, like Texas, bar newly-released parolees from voting, while other states bar voting for misdemeanants. Some states even have different laws in each of their counties. As we have witnessed, the confusion surrounding this law contributes to a continuous cycle of arrests, convictions, and disenfranchisement. No other group is so ubiquitously disenfranchised, and in 2018, the United States has over six million felons who cannot vote.

These unclear and variant laws create confusion for when felons and ex-felons can and cannot vote. Even poll workers and government officials are unsure of whom to allow to vote. Many re-arrests come from unwittingly breaking the law. Yes, Ms. Mason illegally filled out her ballot. But she, like so many other Americans, was under the impression that: since she was released, her rights had been restored. But in her state, they were not. Ignorance is not a defense, but even those who are responsible for advising ex-felons give them uncertain and inaccurate information. When the laws are unclear, people will break them without intent.

This universal confusion wrought from inconsistency in the law creates a massive population of disenfranchised Americans. From those who have a misdemeanor to longtime ex-felons to correctional officers to politicians, everyone is confused about when it is legal to vote. So, many ex-felons, and some with the most inconsequential of offenses, just don’t vote at all. According to the Right to Vote campaign, the number of disenfranchised felons and ex-felons nearly doubles when we include those who do not vote because of legal confusion. Crystal Mason was banned from voting but didn’t know. Others don’t know that they can vote. Due to these inconsistent laws and rampant misinformation, over ten million people are effectively disenfranchised.

It is rightly so that convicted felons lose some of their freedoms as they atone for their crimes. These people have acted outside of the law and against the expectations of society. And as a civilized society, we must promote selfless responsibility for those who commit crime, and punish them accordingly… But as a free democracy, we must promote civil responsibility for these citizens, and restore to them their rights upon their release. Prison is not the be-all, end-all for those who break the law. The judicial system is supposed to rehabilitate offenders so they can re-enter society and commit to a crime-free life. And part of that reformation means the restoration of Constitutional rights. If we thought that criminals could never be reformed, we wouldn’t release them from prison in the first place…

Ms. Mason from Texas was reformed. After her release, she earned a degree and got a solid job. She is a star model of the judicial rehabilitation system. She paid her dues to her community. But she was denied her Constitutional rights, so when she tried to vote, again she was arrested. This cycle of conviction for merely attempting to participate in our democracy is a dubious betrayal of our values as Americans. Taking away the right to vote is a vicious process with little benefit. After the 2008 presidential election, according to the Council on Crime and Justice, only two percent of felon voter investigations resulted in convictions. This was one-thousandth of a percent of all 2008 voters. This is a stupendous waste of resources for an operation that seeks to punish those who are actually engaged enough to go to the polls.

The cycle of jailing and disenfranchising diminishes the voice of communities across the nation. Communities with large incarcerated populations lose an uneven amount of voting power. Unsurprisingly, over forty percent of those criminally disenfranchised are black Americans. As a whole, only thirteen percent of the United States is black. In a 1998 study by the Human Rights Watch, it was predicted that black incarceration would reach forty percent within the first full generation of the new millennia. We have reached this deplorable milestone only twenty years later. In addition to voter ID laws, this is a dubious operation that is ostensibly race-neutral, but undeniably contributes to mass black incarceration, constant recidivism, and mass black disenfranchisement.

Instead of destroying engagement in communities, we should be promoting responsibility and involvement for good citizenship. Being involved in a community is a stepping-stone to living a successful and lawful life. According to a 2006 study, ex-felons who vote are less likely to be arrested again. By simply allowing rehabilitated felons to vote, we can break the cycle of re-incarceration. In one small step, we can provide them the opportunity to succeed and become law-abiding citizens again. Not only will this help ex-felons to get their lives back on track, it is good governance and good for society.

Voting empowers the community and it empowers individuals within the community. When people feel stronger ties to their community, and are involved with their peers, there are life-changing benefits. Instead of feeling ostracized and disconnected, rehabilitated ex-felons can reconnect and reintegrate into society. When these citizens feel connected and invested in their community, they are responsible for it. They are responsible in it. And yet, according to the CCJ, an overwhelming majority of those disenfranchised are the ones living in these communities, working hard to support themselves and their families, and make a better life.

The laws demanding felon disenfranchisement are inconsistent with the behavior of felons after they are released from prison. According to The Guardian, upwards of thirty percent of felons and ex-felons would vote if given the opportunity. That may not seem like a lot, but for a group that has been marginalized, ostracized, and disenfranchised, it puts to shame the nationwide voter turnout that barely breaks around about half the population. We should be making it easier, not harder, for these rehabbed ex-cons to reinvolve themselves in society. They acted outside of the law and the norms of society, but their sentence is complete, and ostracizing them only punishes them further. We cannot continue this cycle of imprisonment for the people we expect to be deviant, because they are just as engaged and just as human as everyone else.

By reconsidering the rules that deviate so much along state and county lines, we can create consistent laws to end the mass confusion. Though the punishment for breaking the law should be reciprocal to the crime committed, once they have atoned for their sins, should we not reciprocate the rights guaranteed to everyone else? Just by enforcing the same policies across the nation, we can eliminate the enormous amount of misinformation and falsehood. Never again should a citizen be punished for participating in our democracy in earnest. Our democracy is contingent on our free elections, and it is appalling that we still restrict rehabilitated ex-felons – law abiding citizens – from voting. And still, in 2018, as we have witnessed, they are being deterred from even trying to vote, and we punish them indiscriminately. We can and we must change this.

I urge you not to take action to re-legislate, but to instead re-think. Re-think your opinion on those thrust into the judicial system, on those who have spent years in penitentiaries… This is not a legislative revolution, but an ideological one. If we start to see ex-felons and ex-criminals and even current felons not as lawbreakers, animals, or “the other,” but instead as Americans on the wrong path, we can start to work to bring them back to the right path. And with this expectation, we must provide them with the opportunity for responsibility. They will surprise you. Thank you.