Second Chance voters
A look back at my first six months reporting on criminal justice and corrections in North Carolina
I’ve gone to a lot of committee hearings over the course of my career. They’re mostly insider baseball, in-the-weeds conversations between policy wonks and department heads. One time, I watched a virtual committee hearing live on YouTube that had one other viewer.
Restoring hope in the vote among those with felony convictions in North Carolina
More than 50,000 North Carolinians can vote this fall thanks to a court ruling that restored the rights of people on probation and parole. But their gains are precarious. One hot afternoon in early October, Corey Purdie helped put the finishing touches on the exterior of the 300-square-foot house at Broad and Queen streets in New Bern, North Carolina.
Attorney Whitley Carpenter of the advocacy group Forward Justice on restoring voting rights to the formerly incarcerated
This is an encore posting of an interview first broadcast in August of this year.
Disenfranchised no more, ‘Second Chance voters’ can register and cast ballots — for now
Allowing those on probation and parole to vote marks the largest expansion of voting rights in North Carolina since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Daquan Peters didn’t waste any time registering to vote on Wednesday. He hadn’t been fast enough last year, during a 10-day window between court proceedings where people like him, those who were home after spending time imprisoned for a felony but still on probation or parole, were briefly re-enfranchised.