Words by Avery Gregurich\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Margaret, 35, pulls her mug shot up on her cell phone, slides it across the table. <\/span><\/p>\n

Margaret is not her real name. In the photo, she had just been arrested for her ties to meth distribution. Her hair is thin. She is thin. There is no resemblance to the woman sitting across the table.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI look at the picture and it\u2019s like it\u2019s not even me. When I tell my story, it\u2019s like I\u2019m talking about another person because it is so removed from who I am now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The picture was taken 11 years ago. It was the first and only time she became a felon. Since then, she\u2019s held other titles: wife, mother, active church member and perhaps most importantly, employee. One thing still eludes her, though: voting.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve paid my debt. I\u2019ve terminated my supervision. I\u2019ve served my time in prison. What does that say? Am I not a human?\u201d she asks. \u201cThat I don\u2019t deserve to vote because of my past? When\u2019s the debt paid? When is it over?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

Of the 50 U.S. states<\/span><\/a>, 48 have some restriction on the voting rights of offenders convicted of felonies. (Maine and Vermont allow offenders in prison to vote.) States\u2019 disenfranchisement laws run the gamut: from not allowing voting by either those currently incarcerated, those on parole, those on probation or those who have ever been convicted of a felony.<\/span><\/p>\n

Iowa, along with Kentucky and Florida, permanently revokes the voting rights of former felons, requiring individual petitions sent directly to the governor\u2019s office to restore voting rights. Florida currently holds the nation\u2019s largest population of disenfranchised citizens with over 1.5 million, or more than 10 percent of Florida\u2019s entire population.<\/span><\/p>\n

And Kentucky?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you put everybody in Kentucky who had a felony conviction and couldn\u2019t vote because of it in one city in Kentucky, it would be the third-largest city in Kentucky,\u201d Tomas Lopez says. He serves as counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice\u2019s Democracy Program at the NYU School of Law. Lopez describes widespread felony disenfranchisement as \u201cone of the upshots of mass incarceration\u201d and sees the laws as having drastic effects on not only presidential elections, but also more immediately at the level of communities. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people lose the right to vote they are obviously not able to vote for president, but they also aren\u2019t able to vote for local offices,\u201d Lopez says. <\/span><\/p>\n

Margaret herself is considering the ramifications of this on the upcoming presidential election, not just in the purpose of the vote itself, but in the act of casting it. After getting out of prison, she divulged her felony conviction to all of her employers. But, she hasn\u2019t told her current employer. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI keep it very general on who I think I would lean towards. What do I tell my boss on voting day when I don\u2019t have my sticker?\u201d she asks.<\/span><\/p>\n

This marginalization manifests itself in other ways beyond voting. Things like not being able to supervise her son\u2019s school field trips when he\u2019s older or having to keep her Facebook status updates about her sobriety vague to keep her employment prospects open. Still, she thinks about her son and the way that she and her husband, also a felon, can influence his belief in a system they cannot participate in.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI would want him to have the love of politics that my husband has, but how can we instill that in him when neither of us can vote? That affects the example that we can set for him,\u201d she says. <\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

Her husband, Alan (also not his real name), is sitting at the desk in his office, scrolling through his life as chronicled by the charges listed on the Iowa Department of Corrections website. He counts aloud, tallying over 20. <\/span><\/p>\n

His first felony was at the age of 13 for robbery. He says he \u201cgot on probation as a teenager and never got off.\u201d In his 20s, he started using meth. The drug soon consumed him. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt started basically a decade of chaos. I was heavily addicted to meth and supplemented that by stealing,\u201d he says. \u201cMy thing was forgery, writing checks out and using credit cards that didn\u2019t belong to me. Every check is a separate crime. You see that there are quite a few of them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He went to prison four times over the course of the decade. His last re-entry was four years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI drew a line in the sand,\u201d he says. \u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019m done doing all this stuff and I\u2019m done living this way.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He reached out to the employer for whom he now works and was upfront about his criminal history. He says his supervisors may not know the full extent, but they do know that there was significant trouble earlier in his life. Now, he plays a major role in hiring new employees. He and his company wait until the interview process before asking applicants about their criminal histories. But, he is fearful of a future where any job interviews don\u2019t allow him the same decorum. He\u2019s concerned about the question on most job applications that asks about felony convictions, the one in which applicants have to check \u2018the box\u2019 that discloses their criminal history. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest worry is if I found myself without a job and I had to evaluate how to provide for my family at a level that I am now with what types of jobs that actually hire felons. There are a lot of doors that can\u2019t open because of the box,\u201d Alan says. \u201cI\u2019m a damn good employee and I work hard for my company, felony or no felony.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

As for voting, Alan has seen the stack of paperwork his wife has brought home to get her rights back. And she has just one offense. Veronica Fowler, the communications director for the ACLU of Iowa says the application process is \u201c<\/span>complex<\/span><\/a>\u201d and time consuming. Often applicants must keep a lawyer on retainer during the months-long process. <\/span><\/p>\n

The application itself requires proof of payment of restitution, court costs and other fines accrued by the offender. It also includes four blank lines where offenders are asked to state \u201cwhy they believe they\u2019ve demonstrated good citizenship such that your citizenship rights might be restored by the Governor.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What would he say to the governor, if he were sitting here in his office?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say, \u2018I have a terrible criminal history, and it\u2019s embarrassing, and it\u2019s directly drug-related. Every single crime was committed in the act of obtaining drugs. I\u2019m not a thief by nature. I was doing it to feed my addiction,\u2019\u201d he says. <\/span><\/p>\n

He gestures to the list of his offenses on his computer screen and says, \u201cI understand that that is there.\u201d Then he points to himself: \u201dBut this is here. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always operated under the philosophy that I\u2019ve done a lot of bad, but maybe if I do a lot of good, maybe I can tip the scales back in my favor before it\u2019s all said and done,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

Jack Petsche, 26, is a quick-talking, deeply intelligent man. He works at two non-profits and is starting a third: a residence for people coming out of prison to reintegrate back into society for free. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGuys get out, they can\u2019t pay rent because they can\u2019t get a job. They rack up thousands of dollars in debt, and they have no hope,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can trace back a lot of the recidivism to guys getting out and not being able to find jobs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Based on an <\/span>Iowa Department of Corrections report<\/span><\/a>, 31.9 percent of offenders reoffend and return to the prison system after getting out. He was raised on Des Moines\u2019 east side, in an impoverished and high-crime neighborhood. Growing up as a member of the Des Moines Catholic Worker House, he was taught to complete the works of mercy, and he participated in radical leftist politics.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI got involved in criminal life and drugs at a young age,\u201d he says. \u201cI became a part of the criminal class and was very aware of that class predicament.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

At 17, he held up a gas station and was convicted of first-degree armed robbery. He did five years in prison for it. Being inside and seeing the ineffectiveness of rehabilitation programs and re-entry practices gave Petsche an entirely new outlook on the criminal justice system. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe primary goal of criminal justice is certainly not rehabilitation in any sense of the word. Its primary goal is very, very clearly punitive,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is a tremendously flawed system. It doesn\u2019t benefit the taxpayer, it doesn\u2019t benefit the individual, it doesn\u2019t make us any safer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For drug treatment classes, they would watch movies about drugs like <\/span>Blow<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be abundantly clear if anybody sat in on these treatment classes that they are not in any way geared towards rehabilitation,\u201d he says. \u201cThey are just filling a quota.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When he re-entered society, he had difficulty finding work.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had probably five places that have offered me management type jobs and then subsequently my background check came back, and they rescinded the job offer,\u201d Petsche says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t get a job at McDonald\u2019s. I couldn\u2019t get a job at Walmart.\u201c<\/span><\/p>\n

He says he won\u2019t petition Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad for his voting rights because by simply participating in the process, former felons are further disenfranchising themselves. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey force you into this dichotomy of you either accept it and further the legitimacy of the state by voting, or you are denuded of any agency in the system, and they use that against you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

Sammy Archer, 42, is standing in the kitchen of a home he is fixing up in Des Moines\u2019 east side. Just around the corner at what is now a liquor store, he watched his friend kill a man in a gas station robbery. For his part in the robbery, he was given a charge of second-degree murder.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI caught my first felony when I was 15 years old,\u201d he says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t even smoke when I got to prison, but I had a 50-year adult sentence. I had to get my mom\u2019s permission to smoke a cigarette.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When he got out the first time, he found himself ill-prepared for life outside the walls.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was 28 years old when I walked out for the first time. I was still 15 years old in a 28-year-old\u2019s body,\u201d he says. \u201cIf I could smoke it, I\u2019d smoke it. If I could snort it, I\u2019d snort it. If I could stick in a needle, I\u2019d stick it in my arm.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Standing in the kitchen now, though, he says that life of drugs and crime is over. He talks about getting high a final time right after he got out of prison the last time. Immediately, he turned back into \u201cthe scum of the earth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI have no fear of ever using drugs again,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s just not in my makeup anymore.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He\u2019s formed a sort of informal support group with other former felons with whom he did time. He says they keep each other accountable and remind each other of all they have outside the walls. Before speaking with him tonight, here in his kitchen, he was talking to a man he used to do drugs with.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI told him, \u2018Don\u2019t you like sleeping?\u2019 We used to stay up two or three weeks at a time. I said, \u2018Don\u2019t you like hearing that alarm go off and knowing that you get to go out and make some money? Even if you don\u2019t like the job that day, you still get to go and make money,\u201d Archer says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s legit money that you get to keep in your pocket. You ain\u2019t geeked out sitting in your car for days because you ain\u2019t got nowhere to go and you haven\u2019t showered for three or four days.\u2019\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While the friends haven\u2019t changed, the context of the conversations have. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt used to be, \u2018I need a shot of dope, how much do you want?\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cNow it\u2019s, \u2018I need you to take a picture of my kid at her birthday party.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Archer believes that politicians should have term limits, and that career politicians are phony. He\u2019d really like to vote. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to bitch about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders,\u201d Archer says. \u201cBut you act like I\u2019m fucking not here. I still got to pay your taxes and I got to work every day. You would expect me to be a part of society.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

The ACLU\u2019s Fowler agrees, and feels that these laws are in direct opposition to the current standards of penal philosophy. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the model of criminal justice, where once somebody has done their time, paid their debt to society, they are off probation, you make them as full a citizen as possible to integrate them back into society,\u201d she says. \u201cThat is an important part of re-entering society in a productive way. To feel like a true and engaged member of your community, you need to have the right to vote. You need to participate in a democracy and not be shunted out of it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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