DES MOINES, Iowa — As demands for Gov. Kim Reynolds to sign an executive order restoring voting rights to felons continue to go unmet, Des Moines Black Lives Matter has drafted an executive order of their own, laying out their demands for the governor to sign.
If signed, the order would replace Executive Order 70, enacted by Gov. Branstad enacted in 2011, which calls felons having to apply to restore their rights to citizenship "an important and necessary aspect of an offender's process of reintegration into society."
The BLM proposal lays out the opposite, saying "restoration of the right to vote is an important aspect of reintegrating offenders in society as law-abiding and productive citizens."
It's also laid out that tens of thousands of Iowans that are living, working and paying taxes in the state, including those out on parole, probation, work release and special-sentence supervision, continue to be denied the right to vote as a result of a prior conviction that, in some cases, has already been served.
Des Moines Black Lives Matter believes that to be fundamentally wrong, saying the principles of fairness and efficiency demand that those who have already completed felony sentences should not be facing the same disenfranchisement as those who haven't.
The proposal also states the disenfranchisement of people convicted of a felony has a disproportionate racial impact, and thus "diminishing the representation of minority populations in our great state."
Based on numbers from the Iowa Department of Corrections and the US Census Bureau, in February 2020, African Americans had the highest incarceration rate of any racial population in Iowa. About 1.7 percent of all African American Iowans were incarcerated.
If signed, the order drafted by Des Moines BLM would restore all felons' voting rights immediately upon their release, regardless of any further conditions like parole or probation.
Voting rights would also be restored to all offenders who have been convicted but not sentenced to a term of imprisonment, or those who have their sentences deferred or suspended, after adjudication of guilt and as soon as the sentence is imposed.
It would also implement a policy that the Iowa Department of Corrections would send a monthly report to the governor's office, listing all individuals who meet that criteria. An additional monthly report would go to the Secretary of State's office with the addresses of those people.
Gov. Reynolds pledged to sign an executive order restoring felon voting rights by the time November's election rolls around, but Des Moines BLM believes it needs to come sooner than that. Currently, Iowa is the only state in the U.S. that bars felons from voting for life.