Plenty of New Yorkers jeering Georgia and other states for making it harder for many of its citizens to cast ballots are blissfully tolerant of the obstacles to that core democratic freedom in our own proudly liberal state. One of those obstacles now has a chance to come down, and not a moment too soon.
Thursday, the Legislature sent to Gov. Andrew Cuomo a bill that would return the right to vote to parolees, bringing our state in line not only with California, but with Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Montana, North Dakota and other states that allow all citizens to vote with the sole exception of those locked up in prison.
It’s better for everyone when people who’ve done prison time and shown signs of remorse and rehabilitation get a fair chance to reenter society. Parolees — of which there are about 35,000 statewide — need not only supervision and structure to ensure they stay on the straight and narrow, but support finding often hard-to-access housing, jobs and job training, drug treatment, psychological help and the like. Like the rest of us, they have responsibilities. And they are owed the most fundamental rights.
As Albany works to correct what has been a climate too hostile to former convicts, it should embrace the principles of the Less is More Act. New York sends parolees who commit technical infractions like missing appointments or using drugs back to prison at a rate higher than almost any other state. That winds up costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars annually, with no proven public safety benefit.
Parole is not a free pass. When potentially dangerous people exit prison and are still serving out part of their sentence, their behavior must be monitored. They must be sent to rehab programs. When they reoffend, there must be real punishment.
But extending a genuine second chance means slowing a revolving door between parole and prison that now spins far too quickly — and, for starters, restoring the right to vote.
