Voting Rights and Felons

As I have discussed before, felons have limited voting rights. The precise restrictions vary from state to state (see this document for list of state rules). There are only two states who permanently disenfranchise felons -- Kentucky and Virginia. Florida was in the same group but changed their policy last year.

Most states, including North Carolina where I live, allow felons to re-register to vote once they have completed all terms of their sentence. In my case, that means when I complete my term of supervised release, I can re-register to vote. For some felons, however, huge fines (e.g. white collare fraud defendants) with no hope of ever fully repaying mean that they will never fulfill the terms of their sentence, thereby, effectively disenfranchising them permanently.

Yesterday, my wife voted and noted that my name was still on the voting roster (since the names are listed alphabetically when the poll-working marks you off, she was able to see my name). I had been informed that the prosecutor in Philadelphia was supposed to send my judgment document to the state election board, who is to remove me from the list.

I called my probation officer and asked him if I was allowed to vote since my name was still on the list. I figured that it is the state's job to prevent me from voting and if, by oversight, they left me on the role, then I get to vote. My PO nixed that thought really quick. While not knowing why my name was still on the roster, he said I would get in trouble if I voted. Sigh!

Just as well. I am a life-long Republican and have NEVER voted for a Democrat. This year, however, I was tempted and I STILL don't know who I would have voted for. I am so disappointed in my party and I like about 80% of Obama, but I disagree with him on some very fundamental values and principles.

So.... I'm glad I had an excuse to sit this one out :)

Low Intensity Supervised Release

Several weeks ago, my supervised release status was changed to "low intensity." I still must abide by the terms of supervised release but the manner in which my compliance is monitored has changed.

Previously, I saw my Probation Officer once a month (he usually stopped by my house... a home visit) and filed a written report at the beginning of each month. For most people, the written report is a simple one page (front and back) document that takes 5 minutes to fill out. However, because I am self-employed, I had to provide more detailed financial details -- usually about 12 pages worth -- which took me a couple hours to compile.

Now, I simply call into a compliance reporting system at the beginning of each month, enter my PACTS NUMBER (I don't know what PACTS is an acronym for) and record my responses to several questions. It takes less than two minutes (I submitted my report on Monday).

I had to appear at the Probation Office last month to set up the system, which involved recording the phone number I would be calling in from in addition to recording several phrases which are used for voice identification. In other words, the combination of phone number and voice identification authenticates that I am in fact the person submitting the report instead of having someone else do it for me.

I have also been assigned a new probation officer who handles the low intensity program, although she just had a baby yesterday so I don't know who my new PO is :)

In any case, the low intensity program removes the only real inconvenience of being on supervised release. I still have to get permission to leave the district and abide by the other terms but those are not difficult.

I Made the Wall Street Journal

Early last week, I got a call from a reporter with the Wall Street Journal, who was doing an article on the use of cans of mackerel as currency in prison. You may recall I wrote an article about this a while back.

Yesterday, the WSJ published the article with a small reference to me near the end of the article:

http://www.wsj.com/article/SB122290720439096481.html?mod=article-outset-box