Rutgers Students Hold Forum Featuring Disfranchised Students to Demand the Right to Vote for People with Convictions

WHEN: Today, September 24 from 7:00 to 9:00 PM
WHERE: Rutgers-New Brunswick College Avenue Student Center
126 College Avenue
Multi-Purpose Room A
New Brunswick, NJ

On Monday, September 24 from 7:00 to 9:00 PM at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice will host a community forum on restoring the right to vote to people in prison, on parole, and on probation, featuring Rutgers students and alumni who are currently denied the right to vote. This forum is hosted by the Institute and sponsored by the ACLU of New Jersey and the League of Women Voters of New Jersey.

“The last time I cast a ballot was in 1985, when Tom Kean became governor,” said Ron Pierce, one of Monday night’s speakers and the Institute Democracy and Justice Fellow. “Under New Jersey’s law that denies the right to vote to people with criminal convictions, I have been without a voice in our democracy for decades.”

Joining Pierce at the forum will be:

Mark Hopkins, Rutgers student who is denied the right to vote
Dameon Stackhouse, Rutgers student who is denied the right to vote
Dianna Houenou, Policy Counsel for the ACLU of New Jersey

New Jersey denies the fundamental right to vote to anyone in prison, on parole, or on probation because of a felony conviction. Almost 100,000 New Jersey residents were denied the right to vote in the 2016 Presidential Election because of a felony conviction – more people than live in New Jersey’s capital city of Trenton, and more than live in each of over 150 other municipalities in the state. As a result of dramatic racial disparities in the criminal justice system, over 5 percent of New Jersey’s Black voting age population was denied the right to vote in the 2016 Presidential election. Historic legislation has been introduced in the New Jersey state legislature to sever the link between the right to vote and the criminal justice system, S2100/A3456.

###