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Vote!

California allows former felons to vote, but the state prohibits voting by people incarcerated in prison or on parole. Register to vote if you are not already and eligible.

“A person entitled to register to vote shall be a United States citizen, a resident of California, not in prison or on parole for the conviction of a felony, and at least 18 years of age.” (Cal. Const. Art. II, Sec. 4; Cal. Elec. Code Sec. 2101)

This means that California residents who have a felony conviction can vote after completion of parole, while on probation, or if they are committed to county jail with a felony conviction (see below).

However, in December 2011, Secretary Bowen issued a memorandum (#11134) to all county clerks and registrars stating that none of the individuals sentenced under Realignment (probably excludes SO) are eligible to vote. But according to the McPherson ruling, the California Constitution deprives individuals of the right to vote on the basis of criminal convictions only if they are “imprisoned in state prison” or “on parole as a result of the conviction of a felony.” A lawsuit was filed in the First District Court of Appeals in March 2012 to decide the issue to clarify the voting rights of more than 85,000 Californians in time to allow them to register before the Oct. 22 deadline.

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THANK YOU< Great Information to get a RIGHT per US Constitution BACK! Thx. Nice helpful Governmental links too!

The work you do is beyond incredible. Thank you so much. I am praying that the registry can finally be abolished or at least no longer be information that is publicly available. Keep fighting the good fight.

Not sure when the Vote section on this page was written, but:

Proposition 17 was a constitutional amendment that allowed people on parole for felony convictions to vote in California.
As of 2020, the California Constitution disqualified people with felonies from voting until their imprisonment and parole are completed. The ballot measure amended the state constitution to allow people with felonies who are on parole to vote; therefore, the ballot measure kept imprisonment as a disqualification for voting but remove parole status.

PAROLEES GET OUT THERE AND VOTE, VOTE, VOTE!!

Do minors who commit 290 offenses as a minor have to register?

I was 15 at the age of the crime, tried as an adult under the old 707 hearings and given a life an adult life sentence. They changed the 707 guidlines in 2020 and bumped the age up to 16. I got no action because it wasn’t retroactive.

But in adjustments to registration laws I would like to see No registration for those who commited the crime as minors.

I am 45 years old and have been registered for several years now. I have never had a contact offense, nor have I been convicted of any sexual offenses and over a decade and a half. I have since served time for an alleged probation violation, and being subject to the unconstitutional “civil commitment” process. In the year that I have been released, I have been refused multiple job opportunities due to being on the registry. One of these job opportunities would have been working at Walmart overnight, when I would have no contact with the general public at all, only with other adults working an overnight shift. There is no reason that I should be denied such a opportunity. I have as much right as any other adult American citizen to work and earn a wage. Due to my various medical and mental health problems, I have applied for SSI, and being denied. I’m going through the appeals process presently, but that will take several months. By the grace of God, I have a good friend who has been able to take me in, but he cannot do much more for me. He has enough financial problems of his own. I feel it is wrong that any business should prohibit the hiring of someone simply based on their having a sex offense conviction on their record I have gone from staying in a homeless shelter, just staying with a senile old man, to a brief stay in a room that I found out the hard way was being unlawfully rented, to stay with a friend when I found out about the roaming situation, and lost my initial SSI case. I have put out numerous applications and have a profile on LinkedIn and a few other well-known job assistance sites. I am working with Mass ability, and community Counseling of Bristol County to seek job assistance, and these organizations are finding it extremely difficult to find anything for me. A side of being registered as a sex offender I have never held a legitimate job for more than a couple of months at a time, and have less than a total of one year’s work history on my record. Part of this is due to the fact I have spent most of my adult life incarcerated, but also due to my various mental health issues including Asperger’s syndrome, commonly known as autism. I would very much like to do what I can to help the movement to humanize the registry, and and it’s punitive nature. I would also like to do whatever I can to help change the laws so that businesses cannot refuse to hire people, or rent to people simply because they happen to be on the registry. I know firsthand how bigoted and unfair the registration processes. I was cleared by two professional doctors as being safe to be in the community, only to be labeled as high risk to reoffend by the idiots at the registry who don’t know a single thing about me. I believe this should be considered unlawful and unconstitutional and changed immediately. Such changes should definitely be retroactive to the start of the registry.