44-year-old activist Pamela Moses was recently sentenced to six years and one day in prison in Tennessee! What did she do?
She tried to register to vote in 2019.
Back in 2015, Moses pled guilty to felony charges – which Tennessee used to strip her of her right to vote. But she said they never told her! And the court failed to give election officials the documents to remove her from the electoral rolls.
After a succession of more errors, the system punished HER. And she isn’t alone.
From sentencing disparities between convicted Black and white voters to politicians constantly accusing predominantly Black regions of fraud, Black people have been punished for voting ever since we got the “right.”
When it's this easy for the system to punish someone for something that caused no harm, and it’s this difficult for people to practice their constitutional rights, it's clear which side the system is on.
The criminal legal system generates injustice by not only incarcerating our community in the first place, but criminalizing our right to have a say in how things can change.
As prison populations rise, and police grow in power, more of us will become ineligible to vote, or get in trouble for thinking we can. Even if that's not you, that is an unacceptable blow to our collective power!