Rally for Voting Rights makes an impact

Today's Rally for Voting Rights in Frankfort was a strong combination – THIRTY organizational cosponsors, FOURTEEN people with felonies in their past telling their stories under the capitol dome, SIX media outlets covering the event, about 175 attendees, and with all that we built a lot of momentum and awareness for our fight for Voting Rights.

There were people there from Murray and Inez and so many places in-between.

We printed off a giant executive order restoring the right to vote for 312,000 Kentuckians and got everyone in the audience to sign it, and left room for one more signature – Governor Matt Bevin's, and delivered it to his office. Just in case he needed one, about a hundred attendees also dropped off an ink pen.Right now, only the governor has the ability to restore someone's right to vote and because he doesn't use that ability much, 9% of voting age Kentucky citizens can't vote. We're pushing for a constitutional amendment to automatically restore voting rights when people have served their time, and we're also pushing the governor to take action to help in the meantime. 

That's something Governor Bevin has refused to do, but there's also a governor's election this year. So we have a chance to educate all the candidates on this issue and support the ones who are on the side of Democracy.

Here's the photo album on flickr with lots of pictures of the day.

Expect to hear more about this event tomorrow and over the next week, as we put up quotes, pictures, videos and stories of this powerful day.

• Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
• Kentucky Council of Churches
• United Food and Commercial Workers 227 (UFCW)
• Kentucky Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (KACDL)
• National Conference of Firemen & Oilers (SEIU 32BJ-NCFO)
• Kentucky Equal Justice Center (KEJC)
• Kentuckians For The Commonwealth (KFTC)
• League of Women Voters of Kentucky
• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kentucky
• Kentucky Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
• People Advocating Recovery (PAR)
• Indivisible East Kentucky
• Jewish Community Relations Council of Louisville
• National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), Louisville
• Young People in Recovery
• Louisville Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ)
• Kentucky Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials (KBC-LEO)
• Fairness Campaign
• The Women's Network
• Frankfort Anti-Racism Advocate
• Quaker Committee for Kentucky Legislation
• The Institute for Compassion in Justice, Inc
• Central KY Council for Peace & Justice
• Black Lives Matter, Louisville
• Together Frankfort
• Kentucky Mental Health Coalition
• The People’s Campaign Community Network
• Kentucky Young LGBTQ Democrats
• Kentucky State AFL-CIO
• Louisville Urban League
  
  

Media coverage

• Disenfranchised Kentuckians rally for reinstatement of voting rights - The State Journal
• With Eyes on Governor, Kentuckians with Felonies Rally for Right to Vote – Kentucky News Connection