{"id":42896,"date":"2024-11-04T14:56:56","date_gmt":"2024-11-04T19:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/?p=42896"},"modified":"2024-11-04T14:56:57","modified_gmt":"2024-11-04T19:56:57","slug":"source-new-mexico-native-voter-battles-state-over-ballot-disenfranchisement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2024\/11\/04\/source-new-mexico-native-voter-battles-state-over-ballot-disenfranchisement\/","title":{"rendered":"Source New Mexico: Native voter battles state over ballot disenfranchisement"},"content":{"rendered":" \"Virgil<\/a>
The day after he mailed in his ballot, Virgil Dixon said was sitting in his apartment in Albuquerque, looking at the Sandia Mountains through his bedroom window. \u201cOh man, it\u2019s good to be back home,\u201d Dixon recalls telling himself \u2013 physically in the same place, but still a world away from the lost feeling he felt when he couldn\u2019t vote. Photo by Bright Quashie for Source New Mexico <\/figcaption>\r\n
Despite wrongful denials, New Mexico veteran who completed his sentence for a felony finally votes<\/div>\r\n
How New Mexicans with past felony convictions solidified a major victory for voting rights<\/div>\r\n
Monday, November 4, 2024<\/div>\r\n
By Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico<\/a> <\/div>\r\n

<\/P>

Virgil Dixon was born in New Mexico but had been away for two decades moving around the country, following his son and grandchild to remain close to them.<\/p>

Dixon, 71, made it a priority to register to vote and was able to cast ballots everywhere he lived: in Iowa, Oregon and Minnesota.<\/p>

Those states, like New Mexico, allow people like Dixon \u2013 who was once convicted of a felony \u2013 to vote.<\/p>

But after he returned to his home state in 2022, he tried to register to vote the following year and was denied his right, because he was convicted of possessing cocaine more than two decades earlier.<\/p>\r\n

<\/P>\r\n

People with felony convictions can vote in New Mexico. The state has for many years allowed people who are out of prison \u2014 and who are no longer on probation or parole \u2014 to re-register to vote.\u00a0<\/p>

When Dixon tried to register to vote in 2023, Bernalillo County Clerk Linda Stover sent him an outdated registration form asking him whether he served his full time in prison.<\/p>

The thing is, Dixon has never been in prison. A judge sentenced him to one year of unsupervised probation, and he completed it in 2001.<\/p>

However, on July 27, 2023, Stover wrote a letter to Dixon telling him he was not eligible to vote because he had been convicted of a felony.<\/p>

Whenever someone is convicted of a felony in New Mexico, the state\u2019s voter registration system attaches a \u201cfelony flag\u201d to their name, making them ineligible to vote.<\/p>

Until a 2023 change in the law, the only way to get the flag removed was for the Corrections Department or the voter themselves to have it removed.<\/p>

This resulted in felony flags being attached not just to people in prison but also to everyone who had ever been convicted of a felony, including those still on probation or parole, and those who had long completed their sentences.<\/p>

Dixon said he felt like tearing up the letter. He tried to register a second time in September 2024, and was rejected again for the same reason.<\/p>

\u201cMy spirit just got shot down,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>

Dixon said the denials triggered his post-traumatic stress disorder. He was a U.S. Army combat engineer in the Vietnam War from 1972 to 1973.<\/p>

\u201cI blew my top,\u201d Dixon said. \u201cI was ready to say, \u2018To heck with it all,\u2019 you know?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\"Virgil<\/a>

Virgil Dixon, 71, is a grandfather, a retired Army combat engineer and a citizen of Navajo Nation. He is shown in his apartment in Albuquerque on October 28, 2024, days after he voted in the 2024 General Election. Photo by Bright Quashie for Source New Mexico <\/figcaption>

<\/P>\r\n

\u2018Emotional disenfranchisement\u2019<\/div>\t

On July 1, 2023, a new state law<\/a> went into effect, restoring<\/a> voting rights to people with felony convictions as soon as they get out of prison, including those who are still on probation or parole.<\/p>

It restored the franchise to an estimated 11,000 New Mexicans, according<\/a> to the Sentencing Project, which advocates for lowering the number of people behind bars.<\/p>

But over the following 15 months, Dixon and about 900 other New Mexicans\u2019 voter registrations were wrongfully denied because New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver used an incorrect list showing they were still in prison, said Daniel Yohalem, a civil rights attorney representing Dixon and the other plaintiffs in the case.<\/p>

The new law requires the New Mexico Corrections Department to give Toulouse Oliver a list of people in prison and therefore ineligible to vote, so she can register everyone who\u2019s eligible, including those on probation and parole.<\/p>

However, the Corrections Department failed to give her the list, leaving her to rely on outdated and inaccurate information to populate the statewide voter registration system.<\/p>

When the county clerks ran those registrations against the Secretary of State\u2019s bad list, that caused those people to be rejected, Yohalem said in an interview.<\/p>

After repeated unsuccessful attempts over the past year to convince Toulouse Oliver to implement the new law, court documents show, Yohalem and the Washington D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center filed the lawsuit.<\/p>

Less than two weeks later, on October 8, a judge ordered<\/a> Toulouse Oliver and the Corrections Department to make the changes needed to implement the new law.<\/p>

Following the judge\u2019s order, Toulouse Oliver directed all 33 county clerks to stop using the old voter registration form, and to use only the new corrected ones, Yohalem said.<\/p>

The old forms were unlawful because they incorrectly stated that, unless the governor had personally pardoned them, people with felony convictions cannot vote until they had served their whole sentence and completed all conditions of parole probation, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>

Toulouse Oliver also changed some incorrect references to the old forms on her official website, Yohalem said.<\/p>

Toulouse Oliver compiled a list of the people who were improperly denied after the new law went into effect, sent it to the clerks and directed them to reprocess those people, and unless they\u2019ve gone back into prison for a new crime, they\u2019re supposed to be registered, he said.<\/p>

The Corrections Department sent an updated list of people in prison as of October 1 to Toulouse Oliver, and set up a hotline for clerks to call to determine whether someone is incarcerated.<\/p>

But people impacted by the criminal legal system aren\u2019t going to return to a government building asking to vote, said Selinda Guerrero, a core organizer with Millions for Prisoners New Mexico, a plaintiff in the suit. She calls this \u201cemotional disenfranchisement.\u201d<\/p>

\u201cThere\u2019s so many restrictions if you\u2019ve been convicted of a felony that you essentially are under Jim Crow law,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re a second-class citizen.\u201d<\/p>

When she tried to reach back out to people who had been wrongly rejected, some had completely lost hope, she said.<\/p>

\u201cWe\u2019re having to re-energize people and try to convince them that this also belongs to them all over again,\u201d Guerrero said.<\/p>\r\n \"Virgil<\/a>

Virgil Dixon stands before the Sandia Mountains reflecting the sunset outside Albuquerque. Photo by Bright Quashie for Source New Mexico) <\/figcaption> \r\n

<\/p>\r\n

\u2018This is home\u2019<\/div>\t

As part of the lawsuit, Dixon explained to the court why voting is important to him as a citizen of the Navajo Nation.<\/p>

\u201cI want to be able to vote in my home state of New Mexico, where my Din\u00e9 homelands are,\u201d he said in a sworn affidavit.<\/p>

During World War II, Dixon\u2019s grandfather Richard Thomas, of Shiprock, was a Navajo Code Talker, a group that used their tribal language to secretly transmit messages during battles against Japan. The state of New Mexico did not provide Native Americans the right to vote until a U.S. Marine and Pueblo of Isleta citizen used the courts to force the issue<\/a> in 1948, well after that war ended.<\/p>

Dixon\u2019s case is an example of the barriers to Native voting access that remain to this day, including sparse mail pickup<\/a> in rural and tribal regions, racist gerrymandering<\/a> in local elections, and polling places located on the other side of poorly maintained or non-existent roads<\/a>.<\/p>

In fact, the same state law being fought over in this case also enacted the first-in-the-nation Native American Voting Rights Act, which mandates state and local election officials consult and cooperate with tribal governments on where to locate polling locations, among other reforms.<\/p>

While there\u2019s no national data for felony disenfranchisement\u2019s impact on Native people, their representation in New Mexico\u2019s population and criminal legal system indicates they\u2019re heavily impacted by felony disenfranchisement laws and policies, according<\/a> to Human Rights Watch.<\/p>

Native American representation in New Mexico\u2019s prisons \u2014 in other words their share of past felony convictions that land someone in prison \u2014 in 2023 surpassed the national rate, with just over 10% compared to 2% nationally, according<\/a> to the New Mexico Sentencing Commission.<\/p>\r\n \"Virgil<\/a>

Virgil Dixon shown when he returned to New Mexico in 2022, outside that year\u2019s Gathering of Nations Pow Wow in Albuquerque. (Courtesy photo)<\/figcaption>

<\/p>\r\n

Dixon is a success story in this case. Stover reprocessed his and the other three named plaintiffs\u2019 voter registrations after the judge\u2019s order came down, Yohalem said. Dixon said he mailed in his 2024 ballot on October 15.<\/p>

\u201cNow I know my voice is heard,\u201d he said.<\/p>

The day after he mailed in his ballot, Dixon said was sitting in his apartment in Albuquerque, looking at the Sandia Mountains through his bedroom window.<\/p>

\u201cOh man, it\u2019s good to be back home,\u201d Dixon recalls telling himself \u2013 physically in the same place, but still a world away from the lost feeling he felt when he couldn\u2019t vote.<\/p>

He wants to hang around on this planet a little longer to see his grandchildren grow.<\/p>

\u201cI really feel like I\u2019m settled in New Mexico, you know? This is home.\u201d<\/p>

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