Repealing voter disenfranchisement in New Jersey

More than six million United States citizens are currently denied the right to vote due to state laws that disenfranchise citizens who have been convicted of a felony. More than 75 percent of these disenfranchised citizens are not in prison, and more than half have completed all terms of parole and probation. The US is unique in the civil consequences it applies to its criminal population, almost certainly the only country in the world that disenfranchises a significant number of people who are either no longer incarcerated or were never in prison at all. Activists and advocates, though, are fighting back by reforming state laws. Ron Pierce, a Democracy and Justice Fellow at the New Jersey Institute of Social Justice, who was formerly incarcerated, and Scott Novakowski, associate counsel at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, joined Chris Hedges to talk about the fight they are leading to repeal voting disenfranchisement in the state of New Jersey.

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