America is a land where people can begin again. Let felons who served their time vote.

When my family arrived as refugees after the Vietnam War, North Carolinians welcomed us with open arms. We were given a fresh start, and it allowed us to harness our best selves and maximize our contribution to our new nation.

The ability to start over is the American thesis: Those who left Europe or other parts of the world to make a new life here understood that we cannot improve ourselves, deliver on our promise, or reconcile our mistakes if we’re not given the occasional opportunity to start over.

Yet, in North Carolina, the opportunity for a new start is denied to nearly 60,000 people convicted of felonies, even after they’ve repaid their debt to society. Their incarceration is over, yet we keep them in shackles, refusing to allow them a real shot at redemption.

Allowing people to correct past wrongs and move forward is not only morally right — it’s also good for our state. Refusing to restore their right to vote perpetuates racial divides that undermine our economic vitality: As we’ve seen in North Carolina recently, companies don’t want to do business in states with discriminatory laws.

As a member of Leadership Now, a membership organization of business and thought leaders taking action to fix our democracy, and the co-founder of New American Voices, which mobilizes new voices to participate in American politics, I know that securing the right to vote for every citizen in the state is essential, both for our democracy and for the success of the economy. It’s also a historical imperative.

As a state, we continue to reckon with the racism that pervades our history and impacts so many lives today. The disenfranchisement of people convicted of felonies is a continuing part of that racist legacy. In fact, soon after the passage of the 15th Amendment, which sought to protect the right to vote for all Americans, states began implementing laws like North Carolina’s felony disenfranchisement with the express purpose of preventing Black Americans from participating in our democracy. Restoring the right to vote helps North Carolina reckon with that history — redemption is not just for the formerly incarcerated but for our communities as well.

With a justice system that incarcerates and convicts Black Americans at far higher rates than their white peers, taking voting rights away from the formerly incarcerated remains a cynical and racialized policy. Though Black men are only 9.2% of the voting age population, they represent 36.6% of North Carolinians disenfranchised. This policy stymies the ability of Black citizens to fully participate in the democratic process and to effectively advocate for their rights and interests.

We can fix this by supporting the Unlock Our Vote campaign, led by the NC Second Chance Alliance, to restore the voting rights of nearly 60,000 North Carolinians — and join 23 other states that have already done so.

The campaign includes a lawsuit, Community Success Initiative v. Moore, which aims to secure the right to vote for people on probation, parole, or post-release supervision. Earlier this month, the court ruled that thousands of people whose inability to pay fines, fees, or restitution extended their probation, parole, or post-release supervision can now register to vote.

But tens of thousands of North Carolinians remain disenfranchised because the ruling only applied to those who still owe fines and fees — not to the broader group who remain on probation, parole, or post-release supervision for other reasons. It’s a matter of basic fairness: if you’ve completed your prison sentence, you deserve the right to vote.

We hope that North Carolinians will join us to fulfill the promise of our democracy, which has been a beacon of hope for my family and for so many others, and to set a new direction for our collective future.

After all, everyone deserves a second chance. That includes the citizens who’ve completed their sentences — and the state they call home.

This story was originally published September 20, 2020 at 12:00 AM with the headline "America is a land where people can begin again. Let felons who served their time vote.."